to fill and empty soul
by LyricaBelachium
Summary: CHPT11- Ash is accidently kidnapped by a recently ressurected Jazz and finds herself admitting her past and what made her not want to leave the autobots.
1. Red, Yellow, Blue and Yellow again

First of all, I do not own transformers, second I do not intend to do slash pairings (at least thats not my goal around here), third I like reviews (lol), and fourth, this is based over my own life history with a transformers change into it, so basically the character you see here is me a few years back and what would probably happen if transformers intervened with it.

fith and most important: I do not know how often I'll update this, but I'll try my best.

* * *

As thoughtful, caring and forgiving as one could possibly be, sometimes that wasn't enough to avoid this situation. Yes, she thought, life seemed to bite back even if you tried not doing anything, wrong, especially in this particular case.

A young 14 year old ran for her life across the school field, behind her came a group of boys, they should be around 10 or 15, she really didn't want to count.

Skipping a few steps while gliding in the air with the force of her running speed she jumped over the bench and kept running towards the fence of the school.

The young brunette, fairly tall for her age, with dark brown eyes and incredibly messy hair looked around desperately trying to find another escape route, only to hear them very near already.

"Hurry! We have her now!" the young leader of the group shouted.

Seeing no other choice she quickly threw her back over the tall fence and climbed up the bars just in time to avoid getting on of her feet caught by a vicious grip.

"NOOOO!" she heard the boy yell angrily as she landed on the other side safely, he banged his fists on the bars uselessly, a few of his followers attempted to climb over the fence but they were either too heavy or had absolutely no talent in climbing.

"I'll get you back for this freak! Just you wait! I'm going to make you wish you never got away from me!" the boy snarled as she blankly stared at his face like a bored spectator would heartlessly watch a caged and ferocious animal.

"You do know your not making any sense don't you?" she said in the most monotonous voice one could ever find, her deep brown eyes were void of any possible emotion, this girl was by all means, unaffected by the threats these boys were throwing at her. It was actually quite interesting, considering she had shown some distress when running away from them, but it all seemed to be gone in an instant.

"I'll see you in class then…" she said waving them goodbye as the boy got even more enraged for her lack of emotion or fear, this wasn't a normal human being, definitely not a girl, usually they flocked all over him in a desperate attempt to get accepted.

This girl however- no- this THING, that abnormality of a human creature showed no interest in him, not that he was exactly the most attractive boy though, he was a bit shorter than her, had light brown curly hair and blue greenish eyes, his face wasn't the prettiest either, but in a world where teens are desperate for attention, popularity, money and green eyes he was one of the top most wanted.

Some people actually paid to be his friend; others did him services like doing whatever he commanded them to.

This person however, she was the only one in the entire school to defy him, she neither went for his taunting, his flirting, or his threats, she stood her ground, kept her pretty little morals and didn't fight back, but what irked him even more was that it seemed that no matter what he did, he just couldn't get to her, not even to make her admit he was the best!

He seethed in anger as he saw her retreat in the streets heading off somewhere nobody would find her for she was a hard person to find.

And this, was basically what life was like for Ashley as she stepped down the street watching the tree leafs roll by her feet with the low brisk wind keeping her mind blank, it was the easiest way to deal with it all, to keep everything blank, to think nothing, to feel nothing. She knew sooner or later she would have to go back to school for her next class, and she was certainly going to hear it from her teachers for jumping over the fence.

None the less, it was better than getting another of the daily beatings she got from that group, sadly the said group was part of her class, she really hadn't adjusted well to it, back when she was ten she had to move classes and ended up in this place, where she couldn't for the life of herself find a friend.

She shook her head trying to scare away her thoughts "Don't go that way" she told herself.

It had taken many betrayals and beatings to finally realise there was no hope, none at all, she found herself unable to trust another human being now, and as far as she knew, it could just very well stay that way.

She sat down in a street bench waiting for time to pass by, watching the leaves fall down from the trees as it was currently autumn, not a soul seemed to be present there beside her, and just how she liked it. When the bell from the school could be heard she knew it was time to go back, and boy was she going to hear it for running out of school grounds.

The last class of the day was uneventful, but she did notice a few glares from her classmates and knew that once the bell rang, it would be time to sprint as fast as possible to one of her hideouts.

However once the time came she found they didn't seem that interested anymore and were distracted by some of the class girls, so she hastily left trying to avoid attention.

The entrance hall was as usual crowded with students desperate to leave school and going back to their families, or even to go out with a few friends. Ashley searched for her parents in vain, once quick glance told her the obvious: they weren't there.

Her parents worked as teachers in the same school she was studying at, and for this reason many times had teacher meetings and would take hours before coming to get her and at least take her home. Today seemed to be just another one of those days, she sat down in one of the waiting chairs and observed as the remaining students went by.

Hours passed, first it was 6 p.m., then seven…then eight….finally it was eleven p.m. and her parents still hadn't come, she sighed getting up from her seat and taking one last glance at the hall in hopes to find the ones she waited so long for, nothing came.

"Might as well get out of here before the night guard starts getting suspicious…" she said to herself walking out the door and into the darkened street. Hardly any cars were left, the ones that were there probably belonged to the teachers, well all but the two Lamborghinis down the street, those were just too ridiculously expensive for teachers to buy, unless of course they had a very rich husband, but that didn't seem the case in this place for she knew all the teachers there since she was little. She noted however another racing car was behind them, but she didn't know what model it was or even to what company it was from, she didn't knew much about cars anyway and had little interest in them, but she did know when a car was expensive just by looking at one and these were some of those cases.

"Hmmm…maybe the garage on the end of the street bought them?" there was a little car shop there, nothing too much, you could hardly see it anyway, her father usually said it was there so that when you went to get your car fixed and brought it back, the student's parent's cars could bust it right at the exit again.

Shaking that thought away she calmly walked down the street, heading back home, it was no use waiting any longer, if her parents hadn't come yet, then they were sure to stay there until one or two a.m., and by now she was starving, in need of food, and with a whole pile of nasty homework to do. She turned around the corner to face a road that usually took a lot of energy to get across, especially because it went up, and it had very uneven soil so you could slip easily and get tired at the same time, not to mention what would happen in the eventuality that one fell.

Taking a deep breath she went for the first step but stopped abruptly upon hearing something, suspicious she looked around, it didn't take long to catch a small movement by the dustbins, the form of a boy, partly hidden in the shadows, and by the way he was reacting he wasn't alone.

"Figures" she said to herself turning her back on him and keeping on her path, though increasing her pace a little. The sound of hurried footsteps alarmed her though, but she didn't turn back, if she did she knew it would only keep dragging them behind, but if she didn't they would come sooner and get this over with.

Oh yes, she wasn't afraid of these people, she knew them quite well, it seems they had been waiting after classes to get to her once again. She knew they wouldn't go anywhere too far, after the beating they would just gloat over their amazing "victory" over the monster and leave her there.

Right when she was about to reach the end of the steep street something crashed against her body and both went smashing against the hard ground harshly. She heard the roar of an engine from far away

_They got a ride this time? Who gives these lunatics a ride?! _Were her thoughts.

She felt various hands on her back and legs and found herself being pulled up by the arms so as to face another face, to her it was just about the most disgusting one on earth, not because of physical traits, but because of what those eyes meant, what that snobbish smirk told, of how happy he was he was going to get his little "revenge"

"I see you finally got to me." She couldn't help but make such a remark, she knew just where to press to make this guy angry and if she was going to get a beating from him and his little friends, she might as well make him really hate her to the point he would never be satisfied, they would never stop anyway…

His eyebrows hardened knitting together showing his obvious irritation, and I couldn't help but let a sly smile form on my lips.

" You are going to pay for what you did today freak!" he said poison dripping in his voice.

"And would that have been?" she asked rolling her eyes as if this was the most boring channel on tv and she was forced to watch it.

" Don't get smart with me!" a punch in the gut was his first strike as his rage was getting fuelled.

"Pity, that's the one thing you can't do right? That's why you're so angry I am" she managed to croak between her gasps of pain, mostly just because it had made it hard to breathe rather than the pain itself, she was used to the pain by now.

Another fist came flying towards her, only this time to the face, his fellows cheered and laughed with excitement as her mind spun for a little while and she was barely able to register the sound of engine once more in the background.

"You take that back you monster!" he growled gripping her neck with a vicious grip. "You take that back and admit you're nothing more than just a monster; everyone knows what you are and who you are! Its time you admit it yourself!"

Making sure her fingers were in between his on her neck just enough to get in some air she managed to croak out.

"What? Was there every any doubt that I wasn't so sickening as your kind are?" that did it, she was thrown to the ground and before she knew it a shower of fists and feet came in every direction, she immediately covered her vital areas to avoid any cracked bones or serious injuries, this had happened so many times she had to learn how to do so.

This time she heard it so close she thought she was going to be run over, the sound of the engine roared and the headlights shined upon them with such strength it blinded them for a few minutes, then she realised it wasn't just one engine, but two. Slowly uncovering her face to face her doom she found the boys were still around her, only all of them were staring dumfounded – and with good reason – to two gigantic robots hovering above them with what looked pretty pissed off expressions. Or as far as one can tell from a metallic face made of various small platting.

"That's just about enough" the one on the right said crouching down to be a little more at their eye level, although he was made of metal parts, that suspiciously looked like a car's, he had red paint all around some larger platting, his eyes…wait could those even be considered eyes? They were blue metal, like headlights or something. But of a most impressive blue that could just hypnotize someone.

The boys had all just about the similar reaction, stutter, slowly back away, turn around and scream for their lives while they run as fast as their legs could carry them.

The red robot stood back up staring at them in the far distance and nodding once with a "humph!" took a step back to be side by side with the other one that also glared at the distance, behind these two she could see now, was a third one, with light blue plating, he was particularly different from the ones in front, those two only had the colours different, but all three had the same blazing blue "eyes".

They seemed to finally realise she was still there on the ground staring at them with probably the most shocked face they could find on a human, not that they had had the chance yet, apart from right now they hadn't taken their bipedal forms since arriving on this planet.

"You okay there kid?" the red one spoke once more. His yellow companion kept staring at the direction the teens had gone.

She opened and closed her mouth several times trying to speak but found out her voice was missing at the moment and merely managed to nod every so lightly, afraid that the minimum movement would actually make them attack or something.

"Sunny I think it has a problem with its vocalizer…" he said referring to the yellow robot who for the first time averted his gaze downwards.

"Or maybe you just scared the scrap out of it" his cohort said in a rather harsh and rude tone.

The red one elbowed him before leaning down once more apparently trying to be less intimidating.

"Hey there, its okay, we're not gonna hurt ya, well I wouldn't trust my brother here too much but he probably wouldn't want to get even an inch near you."

Ashley stared at him, more conscious of the beating of her heart and the proximity than what he was actually saying.

"Erm…I did download the right language didn't I? You understand me right?" he looked towards the other two a bit helplessly " aw c'mon you guys! Give me a servo here!" the lighter blue came onto the light revealing its form a bit better, she noted he looked a lot more athletic than the other two who if she could put it in human terms were a bit more muscle and less agility.

"Um….look" said the red one recapturing her full attention" I know its is going to sound stupid but could you please not tell what just happened? You know? Seeing large robotic autonomous beings?" he said in a ridiculously pleading tone, to which she could only raise an eyebrow in question.

His brother snorted looking away once more " Nice sides, maybe you can go on and ask for it to get us a nice hide out and some high grade while your at it."

"Your not helping Sunny!" the red one protested in a pitiful whine." The little guy is probably scared to death, maybe we broke it…" he said reaching with a finger to poke her, she swatted at it as if it was a nasty fat fly and gritted her teeth at him

"I'm not a guy!" she said angrily surprising the three robots.

"Wellthatanswersyourquestion" came the incredibly fast reply of the lighter blue.

"What the hell are you?!" she asked trying to crawl away from the still stunned red robot previously referred as sides.

"You know we asked just about the same thing when we found out about your species, how do you _live_ with your greasy selves?" the yellow one asked giving her a look of disgust.

"Sorry don't mind him, his a bit of a….er…what was that we read about Blurr? That old story about the guy who passed his life watching himself in the mirror?" sides asked the lighter blue.

"Narcist?" came the reply of both the blue robot and the girl on the ground.

"Oh yeah, that was the guy….weird name…but the description fits sunstreaker here perfectly" he said pointing to his brother. "I'm sideswipe by the way, and this is Blurr, we just arrived on the planet and were waiting for one of our friends to come pick us up when we saw the commotion and well…" he hesitated a bit in his cheerful explanation.

"And sides here couldn't help himself and just HAD to get out into the open!" Sunstreaker growled angrily.

"Well I couldn't just stand there and do nothing!" he complained " Besides my joints were going to rust if I kept sitting there another cycle!" His brother rolled his eyes away apparently out of patience to deal with this argument and the sides smiled triumphantly.

"Anyway, you okay there little guy?" he aid turning her direction once more.

"I'm not a guy!" she said angrily getting to her feet and dusting off some of the dirt on her clothing.

"Really? I can't really tell much of the difference in your species, I thought the males usually wore those types of attire." He said pointing to her cloths.

Ashley had been pretty much of a tomboy whenever it came to clothing, choosing large hoodies most of the time and good running pants, she couldn't help it if she had to run for her life daily…

"What are YOU?" she asked giving him a once over fearfully, this was one of the few times she actually felt fear for something, though not as much now since they seemed to be in the least friendly…well at least friendlier than the teens at school.

"Autonomousroboticbeingsfromcybertronsorautobotsforshortifyouwant,notthatitmatterssinceyouwon'tbeseeingusanymoreaftertonightthatis." Came blurr's reply, to which she just slowly shook her head and asked.

"what?"

"Just calls us autobots, its easier, and we're from another planet up there" said sideswipe pointing to the sky."now about not talking about us…" he said with a pleading tone and keeping up his best smile, clapping his hands in front of him in a begging motion.

"Don't worry, no one would believe me anyway" she said hesitantly approaching him, he held out a hand for her to inspect it, both were just about as curious for the other as one could get. " So your basically…living…robots…you are living right?" she asked.

"And your basically living fat, or we think you are alive right?" asked sunstreaker rather rudely as it seemed to be his usual.

"Right…I suppose if you put it that way…."she said touching sideswipe's hands to make sure she wasn't just hallucinating.

"Then you won't tell?" sideswipe asked hopeful, probably trying to fix his mistake to get out into the open.

"Sure…it wouldn't make a difference if I didn't though. You said you were waiting for someone, are there more like you?"

"Well don't you sound rather interested" sunstreaker said suspiciously.

"Well you seem nicer than my kind" she said shrugging truthfully. " I was just wondering if there were more like you." Both Sideswipe and Blurr looked at her bewildered and then back at sunstreaker who was also a bit shocked.

"Congratulations sunny! You were just called a nice individual!" sideswipe teased laughing.

Sunny just growled and once again looked away, though when the other two set their attentions back on Ashley she noted he looked back with a small smile.

"To answer your previous question yes, his a friend of ours and is supposed to take us back to base but it should still be a few more hours before he gets here…so…need a ride home?" the question was so unexpected that even the other two seemed surprised.

"Whaddya mean ride? If you cross the city your going to attract a whole lot of attention!" now that she thought of it how DID those three manage to hide until now?

Sideswipe merely chuckled and stepped back, gears and bolts suddenly moved on all three of them and before she could even muster the control to blink two Lamborghinis and the racing car from before were in front of her, headlights glaring at her defiantly.

The driver's door of the red lambo opened invitingly.

"Well c'mon! We don't have all night!" came sideswipe's voice from the car, his engine revving in what she supposed was excitement.

"A stash of high grade in how sides will make the human throw her insides out before we get to our new destination" sunstreaker said over the car radio as she came in, the seatbelt strapping onto her by itself.

15 minutes later she wobbled over to the glass door from the building her apartment was in. " that was..."

"don't say it was too fast," sides quickly interrupted her " be glad you weren't inside Blurr, he is far faster than me"

"awesome!" she finished turning around with eyes as big as dinner plates, usually it took a lot longer to reach her home and they had even side tracked with the car's excitement.

"I-oh!" he said realising the human actually liked it instead of nearly dying of a hear tattack. "Glad you liked it!" he said cheerfully. Just then the radio went on with another voice.

"Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, Blurr, come in, this is Bumblebee speaking." The voice was rather young but it was definitely that of a guy's.

"This is Sunstreaker speaking Bumblebee, we're still waiting, what's your ETA?"the yellow lambo asked.

"ETA should be in ten minutes, but I have a little bit of a company following me right now, is the area you are at safe for transformation?"

"Roger that, there's a few fields next to these buildings, should provide enough cover, who's following you?" He sounded a bit too excited about this friend.

"that would be our dear old friend Barricade, think you can prepare a last minute welcome party for him?" the voice sounded somewhat amused and it seemed whoever was there was driving pretty fast.

An actual chuckle came from the grouchy bot and the three looked somewhat amused.

"Sure Bee, we've been holding a few surprises for that fellow..."

They then apparently turned off the communication links.

"Ashley, it was really nice to meet you, but we should be going now, its best you don't get in the way" sideswipe said in a bit of a rush.

"Why do you say that like there's trouble coming? I thought this was your friend?"

"Ah...it's a bit hard to explain, and I would really rather not talk about it, its best you don't get involved in our battle."

Her face suddenly hardened and she approached the red car glaring at it, sideswipe actually backed away a few inches.

"Why are you mad?" he asked a bit fearfully.

"Battle?" she repeated in a cold tone. "Did you just say battle?"

"er....yes?" he chanced. Her hands suddenly slammed onto his hood surprising the three bots. Sides tried his best not to wince, this human, although small could look scary...

"Look human" Sunstreaker interrupted feeling his brother's hesitance "this is dangerous, when we say go home, we MEAN go home, and trust me, we usually break these rules but this is the number one rule we don't break. Now get back in and stay there. If you hang around with us any longer its likely you'll get killed."

She turned her glare to the yellow lambo as if she was about to slam his hood as well.

"Oh no you don't!" he shouted reversing quickly" you're not getting your dirty hands on my beautiful paint job!"

"Sunny, ETA 5 minutes!" came Bumblebee's voice through the radio again.

"Slag!" cursed sideswipe "Ashley go inside! C'mon don't make this hard on us!"

"NO! I don't want you guys to fight!"

"But Ashley-!" just then the sounds of sirens could be heard and at the end of the street one could perfectly see a yellow car with black stripes on the hood, behind it came a police car, her eyes became as big as dinner plates.

"Your running away from the cops?!" she asked bewildered.

"Oh slag...." the three quickly transformed and before she could protest sideswipe grabbed her a bit too quickly and handing her over to Blurr.

"Your the fastest, get her out of here somewhere safe! We'll take care of Barricade"

"No!" Ashley interrupted him " Don't fight!"

"Sorry kid, this is something we have to do even if we don't want to" Sunstreaker said, for the first time sounding somewhat affected by the small human.

"letsgothen" blurr said, and before she knew it felt like her stomach was going to come out through her mouth, the scenery flew past her eyes as the robot ran with a speed she thought wasn't possible unless in a serious army vehicle. When he stopped he put her down and not a second too soon she threw up the little food she had left inside.

"areyouallright?"asked the robot behind her seemingly concerned for making her throw up. She took a few deep breaths until she was sure she wouldn't throw up anymore and glared at the light blue being.

"Why did you do that?! They could get hurt back there! Take me back!"

"I'mafraidIcan'tdothatforIhavesplicitordersnottodosohoweverImustleaveyouherefornowinordertohelpmycohortsinbattlesostayoutoftroubleok?"

It took around one minute to translate exactly what he said.

"So your just leaving me here?!" she asked looking around for the first time, it was a lonely neighbourhood, few lights, dirty streets and obviously no one around.

"I'llbebackshortlyoncetheareaissafeagain"and before she could stop him he sped off making his name suitable for he was just like a blur passing by.

"Great, what am I? a little 5 year old? Geez…and he just leaves me here!" she looked around the empty street " well…might as well try and find a coffee shop or something…I sure as heck ain't gonna stay out here…" and with that went off.

Fortunately there was a small starbucks shop just around the street, and it was quite odd how the place looked a lot livelier than before.

While sitting in a nice comfortable chair and drinking a strawberry smoothie just so it wouldn't look bad to stay there she actually managed to start thinking rationally.

_Hn…that was probably a way to just get rid of me…_

_Now why would they do that?_ Came a second voice inside her mind, to this she called her voice of reason, it was something that came with being alone for so many years.

_Well in case you haven't noticed, he just left me in an empty street I don't even know of and left!_

_He did say he was going to come back…_

_Yeah…he and what army? Look that was just a way to quiet me down and leave…_

_Can't hurt to check back at the street now and then can it? Or do you intend to stay here all night and let your parents worry over where you are?_

"shit!" she cursed checking her wrist watch it was past 1 A.M. " how the hell is this coffee shop still open?!" she hissed to herself getting up from the table and paying for her drink, dashing out the door and heading back to the street blurr left her at.

To no surprise no one was there. She sighed in disappointment sitting down at the edge of the street and looking at both sides of the road. It was a dead silence.

"Great…I don't know where I am….I must be loosing my mind for actually believing gigantic intelligent robots exist…probably hallucinated all the way here…or maybe I'm just dreaming…" she said to herself, with a small groan from the headache she was creating for herself she duck her head between her knees gripping at her hair tightly. " and I need to get home…"

Her eyes were feeling heavy already, her body ached from the beating just a few hours before and it was getting rather cold. Blinking once or twice she didn't even notice when the darkness took over, to her it only seemed like a second passed before she felt something warm and hard touch her back. Raising her head slightly she looked up confusedly at two blue lights, rubbing her eyes a bit to shrug the sleep away and see a bit more clearly she identified the face of sideswipe who was poking at her with a metallic finger.

"Hey…" was her stiff reply as she looked around, the other two were with him and a new member stood next to him, at first she thought it was sunstreaker because of the yellow colouring but then she saw that he had different looks and the helmets were definitely different. "Who's your friend?"

"Good your all right, for a moment there I thought Blurr killed you and left you here." Sideswipe said rising back to his full height. "And this is our friend Bumblebee"

"Pleasure to meet you" said the rather scratchy voice of the smaller yellow robot leaning down and handing a finger for her to shake it.

"Er… pleasure's all mine? I guess? I actually thought I imagined you guys!"

"Why would you think that?" asked a somewhat hurt sideswipe.

"Well you ARE a gigantic robot who happens to be able to change into a lambo and you speak with intelligence…should I not think I was having a mental breakdown?"

"Right…they don't get to see many of us do they?" he asked Bumblebee rubbing the back of his helm as if he was a bit embarrassed.

"No, actually not a single one of them should know of us" Bumblebee said rising back to face his friend " and you two just happen to as usual break the rules as soon as you land here, do you realise the trouble this will cause?"

"Well then it's a good thing Prowl isn't here yet!" commented the cheerful mech while his brother stifled a chuckle as if the comment amused them equally.

"It means we have to take the human back with us now, the government will want to know about this!"

"What?!" she interrupted surprising them a bit, though Bumblebee didn't seem that surprised.

"Well yes, I believe this must be a bit hard for you, eventually they will let you come back but we need to clear some issues referring to you knowing of our existence."

"Namely brainwashing me"

"No…they just want to make sure you don't say anything you shouldn't" he corrected, but she kept her sceptic gaze on him.

"I'm getting brainwashed." She plainly put out looking around the street and getting to her feet, finally deciding which path to take in order to find her home.

"Where are you going?"

"Where do you think? Home! I'm not staying behind to have my mind cleaned, no thank you." She said giving a small wave, but before she could take another step one of them grabbed her b the shirt pulling her in the air"ack!hey!watch it! Don't rip the shirt!" she was then put down in a hand where she barely fit in and stared up defiantly at Bumblebee who seemed not angry at all but somewhat reluctant.

"I'm sorry, but we have orders, and its either us or the government comes and gets you."

"She probably actually likes that idea better though, it is her own kind…" commented sunstreaker nearing the two other mechs.

"Actually that assumption would be wrong my dear friend, humans tend to be the species I most despise" she said mocking Bumblebee's choice of words and style.

"Huh? But your one of them"

"Doesn't mean I like it does it?" she said crossing her arms with a pout.

The four mech exchanged looks between them before nodding and putting her back down.

"Then you'll be coming with us!" sideswipe said excitedly.

"Does it sound like I have any other choice? Can you guys at least take me home first? I'll need to get some stuff so we can go to….where are we going again?"

"Nevada" Bumblebee answered seeming a bit calmer now that the human agreed to go with them, honestly the mission could be a lot harder if she fought back, and he'd only said the Government Issue to scare her into coming. "Hoover dam to be more precise."

"Nevada? But that's miles away! It'll take-"

"Five days, yes…I know trust me."

"I'm going to need clothes…" she commented rubbing the back of her head thoughtfully.

"I'm afraid there will be no time to stop by your house, we're on a tight agenda and the former appearance of our enemy means it just became even shorter."

"Oh…that reminds me…" she said crouching down and picking up two rocks proceeding with throwing them at the startled lambos. " Don't you guys ever do that to me again!!!" she all but screamed. They both winced at the tone in her voice while Bumblebee and Bluur chuckled transforming into their car modes.

"Wait then what am I going to do about clothing? I can't just leave and wear this everyday!" she said pointing at her attire.

"I have some emergency clothing in my trunk" came Bumblebee's voice.

"You do?" was the bemused reply of sideswipe as he and his brother also transformed.

"Why on cybertron would you have that inside you?" sunstreaker questioned with disgust to which the yellow camero only replied.

"Part of being a guardian sunny, you get used to it after a while, well then er…" he hadn't cought her name yet.

"Ashley"

"Right, Ashley, hop in, it's a long way and we better get going, if you have any more questions we'll a-answer" his voice failed in mid sentence " a-a-along the-" was that coughing she heard? "way…"

"You okay bee?" was Sunstreaker's worried reply."Your vocalizer is still damaged isn't it?" his answer was a wiring sound.

"What happened?" she asked approaching the car with cautiousness.

"His vocalizer got damaged before he came here, we thought Ratchet had fixed it but scratchy sounds kind of gave away, you probably can't talk too much without making it hurt again can you?" sideswipe explained as she closed the door.

Suddenly Bumblebee's radio blarred on with a song just about anyone would recognize

"I WILL SURVIVE!I WILL SURVIIIVEEE!" she couldn't help but snort in reply.

"Well there's an alternative communication level." she leaned back in the seat and let out a long exhausted sigh, she didn't actually realise how tired she was until they started driving out of town and the heater was turned on.

Her eyelids dropped and she fell into a restful slumber, comfortable with the warmth and the nice smell of the leather seats.

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	2. Mikaela's clothes

Chapter two, it's a bit longer than what I expected and I'm a bit fearful that it might be a little boring at the end, but it was necessary, anyway, once again I'm sorry for my grammar, English is not my original language and although I know that's a lame excuse I also don't have much time to understand how beta readers stuff works.

Thanks for the reviews, and enjoy! :D

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By the time she woke up again, the car was still driving, she drowsily blinked a few times, yawning and stretching before looking out the window and seeing a vast landscape.

"Good morning" the voice came so suddenly she actually jumped in her seat before remembering every single detail and why she was inside a moving car with no one driving it.

"M-morning…Bumblebee was it?"

"Yes, how was your recharge?" She raised an eyebrow, these robots talked funny.

"Recharge?"

"Er…sleep I guess."

"Oh…it was okay…you got really nice seats by the way…my back doesn't even hurt so much anymore." She said stretching her limbs to feel any of the bruises from the day before and see if anything was overly serious, fortunately it didn't seem that way.

"Your back was hurting?" he asked with a slight note of concern in his voice. "Sides and Sunny didn't accidentally hurt you did they?"

"Oh!No no no no no no! They helped me actually…I just had a….well sort of a fight back at school, its…complicated…"

"You get picked on?" came the blunt question, almost as if he knew this too well.

_Damn his good…_

"Well…yeah….I guess you could say that…."

"You guess?!" interrupted Sideswipe's voice through the radio in an almost revolted tone. "They fraggin' ganged up on you! They were seven! If we hadn't meddled in you would be done by now!"

"No I wouldn't, I would simply have a few more bruises. Nothing too serious."

"NOTHING TOO SERIOUS!? SUNNY ARE YOU LISTENING TO –" his voice however was cut off, but the red lambo was still following them on the road so she suspected Bumblebee shut the communication.

"Sorry about that, he just has good intentions." Said the yellow camaro softly. There was a long pause and she knew he just had to continue the conversation, even if that was the last thing she wanted. For the first time she was actually making friends, she didn't want them to know who she was or what she was.

" You really shouldn't let people pick on you"

"Its easier that way, if I don't fight back they end up getting tired sooner and leave me alone, if I fought back however it could get more violent and take a lot longer. Not to mention there's a higher chance of involving others in it by accident."

He seemed to ponder on this for a while and didn't question her further.

"Are you hungry? There's a gas station in a few minutes, we could stop there for a while." She raised an eyebrow studying the dashboard critically; she was sure he felt somewhat intimidated by her observation for she felt the seats going a bit tense.

"You really are used to being around humans aren't you?" he half chuckled half sighed in relief and started heading for the said gas station.

"Yes. I have –had, a human charge for a while, so I learned a lot about you humans during that time."

"Had?" she asked with some apprehension, what happened to this human?

"Yes, he no longer seems to need any sort of protection, our enemy isn't targeting him anymore and he has collage to go to so I can't be with him for some time." There was a bit of sadness in his voice.

"You miss him." She declared.

"I…yes…I guess I do."

"Oh come on! Your totally lovesick with that boy, you sound like a mother who just let her baby go on adventure!" there was another pause in which she was trying not to laugh at the visual image her own phrase made her imagine.

"you humans make no sense at all…" he said after a while, to which she just rolled her eyes patting the dashboard.

"Keep telling yourself that." Bumblebee however did miss sam, he was like a little brother for him, something he never experienced since he was the youngest of his race.

Five minutes later the four cars parked at the said gas station, she was about to get out when the lock went down shutting the door.

"Before you can…dig in as my charge used to say, I need to clarify some things."

She turned back to the radio and shrugged her shoulders to indicate she was listening.

"First, there's a few clothes in my trunk from my charge's girlfriend, you can use them for now." She nodded and waited for the rest " second, you can't talk about us, and third, if you need anything or if anything goes wrong in there, just…give us a call" and with that his glove box popped open and a tiny device came out, she picked it up to find it was a cell phone, it had vaguely attempted to look like a human cell phone but it was clearly not, there were special symbols in it instead of numbers.

"I don't know how to use it" she said trying to decipher the symbol's meanings.

"Oh that's easy" and for the next ten minutes he explained how the bloody phone worked until she was finally free to go.

The four cars watched her leave seemingly with some reluctance.

"You sure this is a good idea?" Sunstreaker asked, eyeing some motor bykers stopping nearby.

"Ashley needs to refuel herself, this is one of the places humans do that when on the road, she won't be able to handle as much time as we can without refuelling." Bumblebee explained.

"Man…humans are troublesome."

" Wait 'till you find how they are mentally…that takes quite a while to get used to."

Nothing in the world could taste any better than the half fresh orange juice and the dry sandwhich she bought there. All right maybe not everything, but what would one expect from gas station food service? It was crap and expensive, and she wasn't exactly holding a lot of money. There were some travellers here and there, everyone staring at everyone else. The bar lady kept chewing her gum while watching the daily news on a small TV.

By the time she was done a group of bykers came in and started ordering their food. She took that moment to glance at the clothing she borrowed next to her, she had been quite reluctant to wear it, but really what choice did she have? The girl Bumblebee knew must have been one of those hotties-and-happy-to-show-it type of girls, for next to her was a pair of mini shorts and a simple yellow tank top. She sighed trying not to imagine herself wearing that while heading to the bathrooms.

A few minutes later she was staring at herself in the mirror, and hoped this wasn't her. How was she even supposed to get out of that place? This was sure to get attention.

"What is TAKING so long?!" Sunstreaker whined for the hundredth time.

Bumblebee and Sideswipe both sighed for lack of patience.

"Sunny, these things do take time! Besides she's been all night in my seat, she probably needs to be out for a while."

"How do you even know she's still in there? For all I can see she could have gone through the back and ran away," the three bots would have raised their optic ridges at the yellow lambo had they been in robot mode.

"Are you actually worried Sunny?" Sideswipe asked in a teasing tone.

"No" came the curt and rude reply of his brother. "I just don't want our secret out, I don't want to have to change to another alt mode." Blurr groaned just at the thought of that, it had taken ages for sunstreaker to choose his alt mode, and eventually sideswipe copied him.

"Then try turning your heat scanners on, you can see them pretty clearly that way" Bumblebee said having done so since the girl left. Just as he said that he noted someone else was joining her in the restroom, he observed for a few seconds noting she took a few steps back and was probably staring at the one who entered, there was a small pause in which none did anything and then without warning he saw the larger figure lunging at her while she tried to take shelter in one of the cubicles.

"We've got trouble" he warned the others " turn on your holoforms."

Ashley really hated these clothes now, she had been just about to leave the bathroom when a man had gotten inside, at first she thought he entered the wrong place by accident, but then she saw his dirty smirk, his clothing was dirty and ragged, obviously one of the motor bykers from before.

Trying for a desperate escape she tried to lock herself in one of the toilet cubicles but wasn't fast enough, a tight grip caught her wrist and pulled her back, an arm tightening around her waist and pinning her arms down, the other covering her mouth to muffle her screaming. Kicking and struggling didn't seem to be getting her no where though, she knew this man wasn't like the school kids, his intention wasn't to beat her up.

To make matters worse there seemed to be a commotion outside for a lot of racket had started. Taking the man's momentary distraction she swung her leg backwards with all her might. The arms let her go almost immediately and he backed away with a whine of pain holding onto his crotch " Hope you weren't planning on reproducing soon" she said grabbing her bag and darting for the door only for it to be opened by someone else.

Unfortunately…it was another guy, and she wouldn't go for the bathroom mistake a second time, she backed up raising her fists for protection and glaring at him defiantly.

He had light blond hair and clear blue eyes, a tan skin and should be around twenty.

"He stared at her with a rather rude glare and then spared a moment's glance at the guy still whining in the corner of the bathroom holding onto his crotch. He made a disgusted face and Ashley couldn't believe how fast she recognized it.

"Sunstreaker?!" he turned back to her and grabbed her arm with a bit too much force pulling her out of the bathroom and into the confusing bar, where another guy just like him but with red hair and redish clothing was tossing chairs and fighting the bykers like a monkey, with him was a younger boy, blond as well and with a tan yellow hoodie with black stripes on it, and another around mid twenties wearing light blue jeans and a racing shirt, he had odd light blue hair with a stripe of darker blue in the middle.

"No way….are those…?"

"Yes, now hurry! We have to get you out of here before this gets out of control"

"You don't call THIS out of control?!" she asked when they had to duck to avoid an incoming chair. He snorted in reply heading for the exit.

"Trust me, Sides and I can make things a whole lot more chaotic than this…this is nothing compared to our brilliance"

"Narcist" she grunted as he pushed her out the door

" go back to our true forms and stay there, we'll be right with you."

"But-"

"Just go!" She reluctantly went back to Bumblebee's alt form and was relieved to see the door lock was open, but she didn't enter, she wouldn't until they came out themselves.

_What the hell am I thinking?! How did they become human to start with?! Were they even robotic cars to begin with?!_

"urgh…I'm getting a headache…" just then the noise seemed to quiet down and she looked up to see four people walking out of the gas station, a bit roughed up but otherwise they didn't look too bad for someone who just came out of a big brawl.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe from what she could manage to hear were discussing 'glorious' moments in the fight, Bumblebee just chuckled at their excitement and blurr was keeping quiet, out of the four he seemed to be the most observant and collected.

Their attention turned back to her though once they were close enough, both Bumblebee and Sideswipe got worried expressions which made her tense, she didn't like it when people showed compassion, it was never a good sign, and the fact that they were humans wasn't helping at all.

" Oh thank Primus! Are you all right?!" Sideswipe asked reaching to grab her hands in a worried manner, she backed away though and glared studying him carefully. "What's wrong?"

"How come your human?" was her cold question, the tone was so heartless it actually made him flinch.

"We're not Ashley, Don't worry," Bumblebee interrupted pushing Sideswipe back since he was a bit stunned with her actions. " These are Holoforms, is similar to a hologram, a holoform however is a bit more advanced, we cant touch and feel in these forms, but we do have a short radius for them." She still looked at him sceptically. "Here, I'll show you" he said holding out a hand."

"No…I'd rather not…I'll believe you" she said taking back another step. He thought this reaction was a bit strange even though everything was now explained, something else was behind this and looking back at his comrades he could see they thought the same. "Very well, but its best we stay like this for the journey, we don't know if this will happen again."

"B-but-" she stuttered suddenly looking horrified.

"Its safer this way. No one will be able to hurt you as long as we're around. Now go get your clothes in the trunk, we need to leave before those guys recover." He said motioning to the gas station, she quickly did as told and went for the passenger's seat since Bumblebee's holoform sat in the driver's side.

They took off and she hadn't said a word for over an hour, this was troubling Bumblebee quite a lot, he didn't get to see if the man had done anything to her, but if he had then Sunstreaker would have probably blasted the guy, he wouldn't show it, but the others could see how the yellow Lambo had gotten attached to the human just as much as his brother. It was just his personality not to show it, and it was amazing how fast that happened in less than 24 hours…He turned to look at the young girl wearing Mikaela's clothes, they suited her, but it didn't seem like she was too happy about it, and who could blame her? He'd seen how males reacted whenever Mikeala walked around like that, pheromone levels darting off the charts everywhere.

"Did that man hurt you?" he asked turning his attention back to the road, pretending to be driving.

"No…" ok that was plain lie, but right now she didn't care, she wasn't comfortable with the human holoform next to her, why couldn't he keep being a car? Or robot? Or whichever!

"Your troubled…" he stated, to which she rolled her eyes " Tell me, please, maybe we can help you."

"There's nothing you can help me with." She replied coldly, the same tone she had used for sideswipe.

"Your not a particularly good liar you know? You can trust us" he reached out a hand and rested it in her shoulder, to which she flinched trying to move away. He raised an eyebrow at this. " are you afraid of contact?"

_Damn…right on target… this guy is dangerous, he sees me too clearly._

"…"

"You are." He stated bluntly. "is it because I'm just a holoform like this?

"What? No! I mean…yes and no…"

"Explain please" he said patiently, looking back to the road.

"Well…its more like human touch rather than your holoform, and you look and feel like a human right now." He turned his gaze back at her, but she was staring out the window, making a point that she was embarrassed by the subject.

"Your afraid of other humans then?"

"Who wouldn't be? I've been running away from my own kind ever since…" she paused as if to think of the time " well it only got serious when I was ten, but it was always there…"

"Why did this happen though? Did you do something?" he asked a bit apprehensively, a person could easily take this question as an insult and at the moment that was the last thing he wanted.

"No…I was just myself…and that irritated them, those guys aren't as free as they like to show. That's why I never fight back, its just not worth it, in the end they were just kids from somewhat rich families and who never got any attention from their parents, so they get that attention any other way they can"

"I don't get where your going with this, many children grow up like that don't they? And many of them don't end up that way."

"Well I suppose you could say that, not my town though, they sort of influenced each others, and no one was there to teach them to be otherwise, so it sort of grew like a threatening society…John was one of the leaders of those groups."

"John?" he asked, not having heard of the name before.

"Yeah, basically he's the one that targeted me. We're in the same class since I was ten, people actually pay that guy to be his friend…but most of them are just either lousy cheats or brainless followers who don't want to be in the target lines."

"Sounds like a few bots I know…" he commented with slight amusement.

"You guys have any similar situation?" she asked a bit more relaxed now.

"What makes you say that?" he was a bit nervous and his hologram flickered for a short second but she saw it.

"Well for starters, you were running away from a supposed to be police car, but since you lot are transforming cars I'm willing to bet it was actually one of your kind. Why was he chasing you?"

"We…er…have sort of a long history with each other…" she raised an eyebrow.

"You said the words enemy, fight, and the phrase that I might die, if you don't think I'm able to deduce your in some kind of deep trouble from that then you are seriously underestimating me."

"I'm not allowed to tell you that information Ashley, its complicated and it could put you in grave danger." She gave him 'are you kidding me?' glance and laughed heartedly, the first time he actually heard her laugh.

"Bumblebee I LIVE everyday running for my life, you think my life can't get any more dangerous? Ok so you guys are huge and made of metal and I doubt I could outrun any of you, but I'm not an idiot, I know when to keep my mouth shut and when I should hide. Besides, if I have to go on this trip with you I might as well know what I'm up against! How else am I supposed to know when I should stay out of it, or what I should do to hide? Or even to help you guys!"

He turned his piercing blue gaze onto her evaluating every inch of her expression to see how true she was speaking. Her fists were clenched from her obvious frustration and her hair was still a bit messy from the gas station incident, but her expression was clear as crystal, the once void and cold face was now full of hope and life, begging him to let her help them.

"Fine…I suppose you have a slight point….and since you already know so far…"

"YES!" she cheered pumping a fist into the air with glee.

"As the other told you, we are a species from another planet called Cybertron, our race was once a powerful and peaceful empire from what I was told, but that was…until Megatron betrayed us, he formed his own army, calling themselves the Decepticons and weighed war and chaos, trying to take full control over the planet, for at that time he had been ruling along with the Prime. To fight back the decepticons and have a right for our freedom and rights, we formed the Autobots," he said this with a little bit more of pride but it quickly turned to sadness and that became strongly evident in his tone. "But the wars took millennia, the Decepticons eventually were nearing victory, but by then our planet was…"

"Impossible to recover?" she tried to finish, since he seemed to have some trouble doing so. He cleared his throat.

"Yes…but there was one way of saving it….or re-birthing our planet and our species that was the allspark. The source of the first sparks ever to be born."

"Sparks?"

"That would be our heart and soul I suppose, we aren't usually born like you organics, most of us were born from the allspark, though there is the possibility of being born from spark bonding."

"Oh…" she said sounding a bit curious to this part of the information.

"Anyway, Megatron wanted the Allspark, he wanted to rebuild the planet, and to create his own limitless army of Decepticons to finally win the war."

"Then I can guess it was under the autobot possession?"

"Yes" he said turning back to the road; the other cars were always driving very close by.

"Then why didn't you guys create your own army? If you were loosing the war…"

"Two reasons….for one it was against our ethics, we were fighting for rights and freedom, to create a spark just so it was destined to fight and probably die doing so was unfair. And second of all because it would give out the location of the allspark and risk the decepticons finding it."

She nodded slightly " Ok that makes sense….so wait…your basically…in a war? STILL?!"

"Yes…that is why this is so dangerous, a war isn't the same as a gang following you around everyday so they can beat you, if these guys catch you, your dead."

"Then the cop car was a decepticon?" She asked looking out the window apprehensively; hopefully it hadn't noticed her at that time.

"Yes…his name is Barricade, his been my particular foe for a long time actually, he has been here wondering around ever since Megatron was killed."

"What wait, hold up, you said you were still at war, but this megatron dude is dead? Then how come it didn't end?"

"I was getting to that…" he said a bit annoyed for being interrupted. "He was killed by my charge two years ago, so the remaining decepticons on earth sort of…disbanded…they have shown much activity lately though, which leads us to suspect their joining forces once more, we suspect their second in command, starscream, is back with reinforcements. What they plan to do we don't know yet, but its likely the war will go on"

"Is that why your charge stopped being a target?"

"I…yes…I suppose so…I should check up on him soon though…barricade coming after me could also mean he is looking for him." She whistled.

" That can't be very good, especially with a name like Barricade…you guys have funny names…."

"Your kind has strange names as well"

"Touché…" she said turning back to her window and watching the schenery pass by." You got radio?" a grin spread on the boy's face.

* * *

Yay holoform crazyness :D I wanted to do something different with them, since most people make OCs love their holograms I made my OC actually afraid of them, its an interesting perspective that she prefers the robot forms to the human ones.


	3. The Shard

every mech or femme speaking in **bold** is speaking through the comlinks

* * *

It had been four long days of journey, finally this was the last day, they had let her out whenever she asked, either to eat or to go the bathroom, or even to stretch her legs, and as consequence they drove at very high speeds during the night, something that although she enjoyed wouldn't let her sleep, so day time was best for that.

She got to know them a lot more, who were they, and what kind of things they liked or did for fun, they still avoided the war and fighting subject as much as possible though so she didn't even know what they did . She had her suspicions though, Bumblebee had the strong characteristics of a spy, always alert for being found out and indicating better ways to pass by unnoticed, to which the twins complained quite frequently, blur, although she wasn't sure what he did exactly, was certainly the type of mech you'd need to get somewhere fast without getting caught, sneakiness wasn't his best talent so she suspected he was either a recon mech or a messenger, maybe an intel officer since he was so quiet.

The twins…well you didn't need much to guess they were front of the lines type of warriors, and they obviously worked as a pair.

She was currently in sideswipe, which seemed the most interested in sharing conversations lately, not that Bumblebee wasn't fun, she absolutely loved talking to the bot, but sideswipe knew less of humans and she knew less of cybertronians than bee's charge, so they were trading information.

It was night time and they were estimating 20 minutes until they arrived at their supposed base, she was getting a bit nervous about it, they told her a lot about the autobots at the base and from their descriptions they weren't the easiest personalities to deal with, an intimidating but kind leader, to which they heartedly insisted she showed respect, then there was a trigger happy mech, old warrior according to them, not to be messed with unless you knew you could get away with it, and third a grouchy old medic with a thing to throw wrenches right after he fixed them, but she had a slight suspicion that was mostly sideswipe and sunstreaker since they had gone into a heated conversation when talking about him.

"Relax….we're right with ya" that did nothing to stop her nerves and she was fidgeting with her fingers, something that seemed to bother the red mech quite a lot.

"What am I supposed to do when we get there though?" she asked expectantly at his dashboard.

"Nothing, we'll handle it, you just have to agree not to talk about us to anyone and that you understand the circumstances involving any cybertronian, either be it autobot or decepticon."

"But what if they start making questions?"

"You got something to hide?" he asked playfully, to which she snorted and looked away through his window.

A few minutes later though a deep but soft voice spoke through the radio, it was the first time she heard it, but it was extremely interesting, it transmitted something…

**"Bumblebee, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, Blurr, what is your ETA?"** it said in a calm tone.

"**Shouldbethereintenminutesnow…"** came Blurr's reply.

"whose that?" she asked sideswipe."before he could answer though the unknown speaker did it for him.

**"Is that the human you spoke of?"**

**"Er…correct Optimus, she's currently inside me."** Sideswipe said noting how the girl paled when he mentioned Optimus's name.

**"Welcome then, I'm afraid I'll leave introductions from when you arrive, at the moment we're a bit busy, we'll meet you at the entrance shortly."**

"Ah….okay? I guess..thanks."

The communication apparently shut off since sideswipe let some air out of his vents, something she recognized as a sigh, and a pretty long one at that.

**"Primus he was less angry than I thought he'd be…."**

**" five days of waiting probably calmed him down "** his brother replied also slightly relieved.

"No wonder you guys respect him so much…just his voice was impressive!" Ashley cut in with some interest.

**"That's Optimus for you…wait till you see him yourself. He's even more impressive."**

"Okay…I don't know if I should be scared or anxious about that… why is he that impressive?"

**"Oh…you'll see…just watch out for Ironhide's cannons…"**

"Right…trigger happy mech if I remember correctly…."

"**We're here**" Bumblebee's voice interrupted as they entered what at first looked like a pretty big garage door, but once inside the halls were a lot taller, and they drove a bit more until they parked n a large round room. Sideswipe's door opened and she took that as her lead to get out, the others were already transforming to their bipedal forms. A door a bit taller than Blurr (who was the tallest) opened, and in came something that made Ashley's heart skip a beat, one heck of a large mech, blue and red, an impressive form just by itself even if she had little experience in seeing giant alien robots, one could tell this one was …well there wasn't any word that could describe it. Behind him came pale yellow mech, with a red line along its body, she could almost bet it was an ambulance of some sort and he had a large scowl on his face upon seeing the twins, and next to him was a black mech, completely…buffed, if those were muscles he'd look like a wrestler or something, his expression wasn't anymore pleasing than the light yellow.

She couldn't help but hide halfway behind Sideswipe's feet.

" Welcome to our new home" the larger mech spoke, she recognized the voice now as Optimus Prime's. "I trust the journey back was…uneventful?"

"Notentirelybutwetookcareofthematternomorehumanswereinvolvedoptimusprimesir!" Blurr said giving a quick salute.

"Very well, I'll want a full report on that later on, and where is our young guest?" he asked looking around the ground searching for her, for a moment he seemed fearful as if he thought he had stepped on her.

"Right here sir" Sides said stepping way and taking all cover from the small girl.

"Er…" she glanced at their looks of surprise " hi? This is really awkward…"

A nod from Optimus made her feel a little bit better, as if he was saying she wasn't the only one feeling that way.

"What in Primus name did you do to the child?!" the light yellow bot suddenly shouted walking over a bit too hastily for her liking. A bright blue light ran over her and felt oddly invaded by that

" HEY! Quit that!" she said trying to shoo him away, but he seemed persistant and ignored her protests.

"This human has bruises all over! Some bones are still mending and she doesn't even look well fed. Even without my scanners I can see that!" he said sending a sharp glare to the four autobots behind her.

"woah! Hold up! How the hell did you know I had broken bones?!" she backed away to stand between the twin's legs, she had found them rather protective of her along the journey so it was the first safe place she'd head to, for starters they didn't seem too afraid of the medic.

"Aw c'mon Ratch! Give her a break, your scaring the scrap out of her" Sides said picking her up from the ground, something she seemed quite grateful for. The medic growled at the red twin pointing a threatening finger at both of them.

"Sideswipe you pile of scrap heap do you even know what broken bones are?! It's the equivalent to breaking your main joints! Crude and painful"

Said robot, looked a bit frightened now, he was just a bit shorter than Ratchet but that wasn't what was fazing him right now.

"I –I..didn't know it was t-that bad…" she raised an eyebrow looked up at him with a ' I thought you were going to protect me here?!' look.

"That's because you don't have any medical scanners on you! You worthless net of circuitry!"

"Hey! Don't call him that!" she said holding onto the mech's digit for comfort, he was really looking down right now, and that wasn't very much like sideswipe, he was always happy and cheerful no matter what! "Hes been very protective of me so don't you dare call him a worthless net of circuitry again!" she paused a bit trying to recall something "or scrap head for that matter! They didn't know I had broken my arm and got the cast off early last week!And as for _Well fed_ blame my stupid metabolism!" she glared at the surprised medic, he blinked once before backing up a bit and sighing rubbing was supposedly were forehead platting.

"Fine, bring her along, I'll need to make a full exam in the med bay." They followed him in silence, the twins had both pairs of optics on her and she had a vague feeling they were trying to see what Ratchet had talked about.

"Wait? Full exam? What the hell does he mean by that?!" she hissed in a whisper to the red twin holding her.

"Don't worry, Ratchet's the best when it comes to medical attention"

"Robot medical attention! Not human! How do you expect me not to worry?!"

"You'd be surprised of the miracles that bot can do. Just trust us if you can't trust him."

"Well that makes me feel a whole lot better" she said with a sarcastic tone turning back to face their path.

The feeling only got worse once inside the medbay, the sight alone made her shrink back as much as possible in the open palm, creamy white walls, eerie hospital lights, gigantic metal beds and a whole set of deadly and scary looking tools displayed for the medic's needs.

"You okay? Your colour changed…"Sideswipe asked poking her ribs with a finger to get her attention.

"yeah…its even more disgusting now" Sunstreaker added, and for once she agreed with him, she probably had a sickening white colour right now and she felt her stomach turning.

"Any chance we can go back before it's too late?" they didn't answer her having seen this reaction before around Ratchet.

"Just set her down on the berth" Ratchet ordered not even looking and taking out a tool that looked like a massive vacuum cleaner. "Relax it's just a scanner" he said seeing her obvious fear and adrenaline levels shooting off the scales.

"Why do you even need to scan me?" she asked looking at it wearily while yet another invading feeling hit her as the light passed over her body.

"To make sure these slaggers were careful although I don't really have to worry in Bumblebee's case, he's already used to you humans and your needs."

"Um...yeah…he kinda told me…hence why I'm wearing these…" she refrained form insulting her attire" magnificent clothes…." He just snorted at that.

"I shall never understand why you humans even need such body coverings"

"Er…its kind of like…like…"she fought for the right words, normally she didn't speak so much with people. Hence her difficulty." Like being decent I guess, not wearing them is embarrassing and rude to most people."

"I still don't see why"

"Think of it like…er…like…like one of you guys without armour! How would that feel?" he paused for a bit as if his processor was running on the thought " I take back what I said." He said turning back to his scan.

"About what?" so far the medic was starting to seem a lot nicer.

"About not understanding your reasons"

"Really? I wasn't expecting to have that much success in convincing you…" she admitted as he put down the scanner.

"I'm done for now, apart from you various bruises you seem fairly healthy although a quite underweight…most of your body weight is made of muscle, unlike the vast majority of your species which tends to have fat as a major weight factor." She just raised an eyebrow

"Basically your saying I'm skinny and I work out…" he nodded.

"gee thanks…that's against most girl ideals….well not that many don't want to be skinny but not like me…as for fitness…" she waved the idea away "most of them don't run for their lives on a daily basis and simply avoid sports at all costs."

"You run for your life on a daily basis?" he inquired sounding awfully interested.

"We saw some kids picking on her, that's how we met" Sideswipe said before she could correct herself.

"Does this happen often?" the medic asked with surprisingly piercing optics. She fiddled with her hands looking away intimidated by his gaze.

"N-no…I mean…not all the time…." She said in an extremely low voice and the rest he couldn't even pick up even with his audio receptors at full capacity, which made him doubt if any words came out at all.

"Your lying human, your stress levels are up, your body is producing chemical reactions and your heartbeat just skipped a few beats." Her eyes widened and she cursed mildly, she wasn't the type that cursed often but this was one of those times when no one could possibly resist.

"Well…most of the time I got away…before they'd manage to catch me…but sometimes escape just wasn't possible…" Why was she even telling him? Even if he did find out about her lies she didn't have to tell him anything. He said something in their language that seemed like swearing and she looked back at the Lamborghinis uncertain, they both looked somewhat pissed off as well.

"Look it's really nothing you should be meddling with, it's just the rules of that place, I live that's what matters." Ratchet gave her a menacing glare but left it at that, it was clear the human didn't want to talk about it.

"You two better take her to prime, she needs everything clarified" he said dismissing them, and she was too keen on getting out of there so she had absolutely no objections into going back to sideswipe's palms.

It took her a while to get used to talking to Optimus Prime, considering his massive size and all, but she quickly found the leader was actually nice and incredibly comprehensive, he had guaranteed to her that they would do the best they could in letting her get her life back (to which the teens seemed a bit reluctant now) and ensure her safety since she had unfortunately been involved with them even if just a little for now.

They had gotten her a space in one of the tables of a rather large rec room, or rather, a sleeping bag and an old mattress, which fitted her perfectly for now.

However, for as hard as she tried, she couldn't find herself able to sleep, well who could? It was a massive metallic living room in a base full of gigantic robotic life forms that could easily step on her not to mention they were literally armoured from head toe.

"At least I'm near winter break…won't miss so many classes…" she said out loud, her voice echoing slightly in the empty room, a dim light coming from a window way up in the wall. "Not that I would have learnt anything anyway…at least things seem…interesting here…" she paused for a while then felt herself blush "and once again I am talking to myself…." It was a sad habit actually, one of the only reasons she still had a voice.

It was unsettling, she finally gave up on trying to sleep and crawled over to the edge of the table where the aliens had very thankfully left a chair so she could climb off, it was dark though so she had to be absolutely sure of the place.

Scampering across the rooms she managed to throw a soda can they had given her to drink a while ago and hit the door opening button, quickly getting the said can back she ran out before they closed and found herself in the long corridor.

"Well…let's see what challenge you guys have to offer me…"

Using her cell phone as a source of light she wondered around, finding locked doors most of the time or just rooms with tons of heavy machinery, at some point she reached a hall with lots of doors and she supposed it was their quarters so she cleverly headed away from there. Finaly she was in a seemingly creepier hall, it was awfully clean and it had a sad cold light at the end near the door which was unlocked.

Throwing the can once more she headed inside, only to find a new bed, or as they called it, a berth, and someone was on it, she wondered why this robot was separated from the remaining quarters until she saw strange symbols engraved on the metal under the berth, that's when she realised, she was probably in the presence of a dead being.

Using the cell phone once again as a source of light she searched for any human translation on the metal and was glad she found one in smaller letters.

"In honour of Lieutenant Jazz, who gave his life for our people" signed Senator Kelly.

"Wow…" she said in amazement, staring up at the silver figure, from what she could tell he had probably been a classy car, but his middle had been damaged and repaired as best as possible, though that wasn't perfect it seemed, still he looked almost brand new, and if she hadn't just read it, she would have thought he could possibly still be very much alive.

A soft blue light caught her attention, it was in a glass shelf on the right side of the room, a metallic shard full of the same strange symbols carved on it was giving off the light, and she could have sworn it wasn't doing that when she came in. Slowly she left the deceased autobot to inspect it more carefully.

She stared at it almost hypnotically and was surprised when all of a sudden it stopped glowing, she raised her eyebrows suspiciously, had it known she was coming near? Or was it…

"That is the allspark" a deep and soothing voice said. She rolled on her heels to see the towering form of Optimus at the entrance, his gaze was calm, and he didn't seem mad at all for finding her here.

"Oh…er…sorry for intruding the place sir, I couldn't sleep and…I was just looking around and found this place by accident" she said the last part rather quickly as the nerves started to catch on. His gaze, if possible softened even more.

"Are our accommodations not up to your needs young one?"

"Oh! No no no no! nothing of the sort!" she quickly corrected waving her arms to enhance her meaning. "It was just a little awkward, I mean it is a rather….big… yeah big room…its okay though, I'm just a little nervous that's all." There was a nod as the large robot walked forwards standing beside her to observe the fragment. " So...what exactly is the allspark?"

"The life source of our species…or at least, this is what is left of it." He touched the glass with care, staring at what had once been their hope.

"It gave you guys life? How is that possible?" she was now fully curious about the matter, here in front of her, was one being that actually KNEW the source of life, one of the things humans never could even dream of finding out for it was lost in history.

"We don't know much about it, only that it is raw power and that it gave birth to our race" he said leaning down and offering a hand to which she hesitantly accepted hopping on, he lifted her high enough for her to see the shard at a better proximity.

"Well…where did it come from then?" He gave an odd noise that mildly sounded like chuckling, or at least she thought it was, it was hard to tell, the twin's, bumblebee's and Blurr's chuckles were more easy to tell, it was probably because of the voice and size.

"You ask a lot of hard questions, we don't know where it came from, or even what created it."

" Well that's informative…it kind of reminds me of Rubik's cube…" she said slitting her eyes in thought.

"Rubik's cube?" he asked amusingly.

"Yeah, its like a puzzle, you have to slide the sides in many ways to match the different colours in all sides, its supposed to be hard to figure out, but in the end its just logic. That one looks a bit more complicated though…" she then remembered something " Why are you here though? Shouldn't you be sleeping too?" He averted his gaze from the shard, he had been staring at it intently.

"I suppose that like you, I could not recharge…though for other reasons"

"The shard?"

"Yes…"

"Makes sense, I suppose if it was your source of life that means no more lives are going to appear, so that makes you guys what? The last of your kind?" He winced slightly at that " Sorry…didn't mean to be that blunt."

"It is all right… you have a point in your logic, we tried in vain to at least revive Jazz but our failures were our result, Ratchet has been feeling quite guilty about it thinking he didn't repair him well enough"

"Oh…what happened to him by the way?"

"He died, holding off Megatron from the humans when our battle for the allspark took place, he…ripped the lieutenant in half" now it was her time to wince and even let out a hiss " Eventually Megatron was brought down, Bumblebee's charge set the allspark in his chest, off lining him, and destroying our life source, but it was the only available choice at the time… if it had not been megatron it would have been me, the boy simply chose the first option against my orders."

"Wait… so you're a suicidist?" Again came that gentle chuckle.

"No, unless it is our only salvation, that is, in the end my duty as Prime. Now I believe we should be heading back to try and recharge, tomorrow someone representing the government will be arriving to sort out your situation" he said heading for the exit.

Ashley gave one last glance at Jazz and the shard before it got out of view by Prime's massive body and they were once again in the dark hallways, his optics lightning the way vaguely.

"How did you even manage to open the door? We've been having trouble with the humans on that matter." He asked after a few steps in the dark.

"Oh…I was throwing this can at the buttons…"she said showing it, the now gravely bended soda can in her hands.

"Resourceful" he commented.

"Thank you" replied back feeling content by such a compliment, after all this was the prime, if the leader thought she was resourceful that had to be a highly good compliment right?

"Here we are" he said opening the door to the rec room.

" Thanks, I can go from here on out"

"Can you climb back to the table?"

"Yeah, no problem, I'm a good climber" he nodded and rose back to his full height looking around briefly then turning to leave.

" Very well I bid you good night then"

"Yeah… night." He was about to leave when her voice called him again, "Er… Optimus? Could you just point out which was the table please?" he chuckled indicating the one she had to reach for and closed the door leaving the human to herself.

* * *

Good? Bad? I really don't know about this chapter :/ you people give me your opinion, I put Optimus in this last part because it seemed to fit better.

Once again I apologize for any possible grammar errors and typos, but I really have little time and only managed to finish this because I needed to vent some out, I should actually be working right now and its early hours of the morning now. . urgh


	4. Goliath

every mech or femme speaking in **bold** is speaking through the comlinks

* * *

Ashley woke up the following morning the same way she had been waking up since she met the autobots: invasive poking of metallic fingers the size of her entire torso or more and the obnoxious whines and callings from the red mech known as sideswipe.

Moving her head ever so slightly, she opened the available eye to glare at the said robot who cheered up visibly once he saw her react.

"You're awake!" he chirped.

"Sideswipe why can't you let me sleep?" she growled sinking her face back into the pillow. Again the poking began.

"Because, Prime wants you ready for the government guy and we're in charge of you, so our task is to make sure your ready" Swatting away his hand (not too roughly for she learned that hurt quite a bit) she slowly sat up and stretched popping a few bones and making the robots present wince. She noted that Ironhide and Ratchet were at a table far away talking in lower tones and in their language, they probably didn't want to wake her up like sideswipe had just done, Sunstreaker was behind his brother looking at the said bots with suspicion for some reason.

"Fine, fine… I'm up…man you can be annoying…" Sunny snorted at that.

"Try being bonded to him, its much worse." She gave him a curious glance before getting to her feet and wondering where the hell could she get a mirror to see how bad her hair was, she then remembered she was in the presence of car transforming into robots beings and motioned for sideswipe to get closer, as he did so she grabbed a metallic part of his body turning it her way.

"Hey!"

"Shut it, you wake me up, then you be my morning mirror "she said turning the car door's mirror to see herself, it wasn't too bad…but she was definitely in grave need of a shower and new clothes. "Well _that's_ pretty…"

"What is?" the Yellow Lamborghini asked suddenly paying attention to the two.

"I certainly can't meet a government official looking like this… I mean man…I look almost like a cavewoman…I need a bath and new clothes…" she rubbed her face in an attempt to relieve the stress building up.

"You can't be in the ones you have at the moment?"

"Ew no! Sideswipe I've been wearing these for two days! I stink, literally, my hair is all tangled and messy and I need to brush my teeth…seriously not washing your teeth for four days is just plain out gross, I think I can still taste every food I ate in that time…"

He listened curiously as the human kept describing how much work she needed in her appearance and quickly deduced this was going to take long, and that he had no idea how to help her.

"**Should we call for help?" **He asked his brother through the com. Link so the human didn't hear them.

"**Slag yeah, I have no idea what she's even talking about…what on cybertron is toothpaste? Do they make it from their teeth?"** His brother replied also glancing at the human curiously.

"**I'll call bumblebee then…"**The red lambo said changing the link connection. **"Bee? You online?" **There was a bit of static but after a minute the familiar sound of the connection came as did a drowsy voice from the usually cheerful 'bot.

"**Bumblebee here…what is it Sideswipe?"**

"**Ashley is spouting some kind of nonsense about not looking decent for the government official and wants to get some things…I have no idea what half of the stuff is."**

"**Oh… I suppose she's right…I'll be there in a breem, Bumblebee out."**

He turned to stare back at the small human to notice she had stopped talking and was glaring at him.

"Were you even listening?" she asked in a low tone.

"Halfway through yes" he said truthfully, really it didn't matter if he did hear everthing, he didn't get it anyway.

"Good, then take me to a local store, I really need to finish this as soon as possible, when's the suit coming?"

"Suit?"

"The government dude, you know? Suit? Guy wears a suit all the time?" seeing his perplexed expression she sighed and waved a hand as if saying she gave up explaining. "Can we just go? Please?"

"We're waiting for Bumblebee, he knows the area, plus he'll probably know where you need to go more than we do…"

"Oh right…you guys just landed."she said in an apologetic tone.

While they waited she had the decency to remember to fold back her sleeping bag and left it over the mattress, by the time she actually managed to do so the small yellow mech had arrived and was looking quite tired while the twins just broadly grinned at him oblivious to his foul mood for waking up so early in the morning.

"So…this is a ball…" Sunstreaker said not sure what to make of the white plain building with bold electric lights in the shape of human letters.

"Mall sunny, mall, and yes, this is where we humans get most of the items we need.

"Why do you need so much?"

"Well it varies, but I guess you have a point, we do want too much and most of the time we don't need it. There's loads of petitions to stop this but we live in a consumerist world these days…so it doesn't work very well."

"Sounds logic" he snorted in a sarcastic tone.

"I'll only be a few minutes ok?" She said hurrying to leave.

"Oh no, your not going alone" a human voice said behind her, making her jump nearly three feet in the air and backaway with a speed they weren't expecting, thus slamming backwards onto Bumblebee's door, she calmed down once she recognized the red head who smiled sheepishly rubbing the back of his head in a apologetic manner. "Sorry about that…"

"DON'T DO THAT!"she nearly shrieked trying to calm down her accelerated heart, over the last few days Sideswipe had the tendency to turn on his hologram whenever he pleased scaring the wits out of her everything.

"Side's we talked about this…" Bumblebee said in an already defeated tone, making her wonder if he was paying attention to what he was saying or had recorded it somewhere in his database. "Though Sideswipe has a point Ashley, we need to accompany you inside, you can't go by yourself."

"Why the hell not? Its just a bloody mall, nothing happens at the mall other than the typical sale's mosh." She asked looking down at the car not caring if anyone was watching.

"Sale's Mosh?" the twins asked with bewildered faces.

"An aggressive activity human females get into at these places when the item's prices descend." Bumblebee cleared them, to which Ashley just patted his mirror.

"Exactly. And I don't plan on getting anywhere near those…nothing worse than a raging woman after toilet paper on sale." She grinned seeing their confused looks, it was rather enjoyable to do that. "So back to the subject, other than that nothing really ever happens in there, so you guys can relax a bit, enjoy the sunshine and…er… I don't know catch up on whatever subject you couldn't speak while I was around" she turned to leave not looking back at them this time.

"Come back in half an hour!" Bee warned before she was too far away, Sideswipe's Hologram still followed her with his gaze; his brother undoubtfuly was doing the same in his car mode.

"Are you sure about this? Last time-"

"Last time was in a different place, Ashley does have a point, she doesn't need us for everything, besides, I've done this dozens of times with Sam and Mikeala, trust me you don't want to spend your time in there." Without waiting for the twins to argue back he set his wheels in a bit of a more comfortable position and prepared for a nice stasis nap, women tended to take long in shopping even if you gave them a time limit. "Wake me when she comes back".

"All right…lets see…" One of the things Ashley actually hated was in fact to shop, but this was a dire necessity, and she could at least get some time to think for herself, she usually couldn't do that when she was alone but to do it when in the company of giant robots from outer space? Nope…impossible to think. "Where the hell is that shampoo brand…oh what was the name of it?" she mentally fought to remember the brand of the shampoo she usually used, all she knew was that the bottle was orange, she had absolutely no memory to the type of cleaning and beauty tool's brands she used. "I'll just pick a different one for a change…wonder if the autobots have a bathroom with a shower there?" she had been to the base's human bathroom before, but she hadn't seen a shower there. She pondered for a while a frown on her face. "I'll just buy a swimsuit and a hose…" she said picking a particular shampoo that had the nice scent of cherry blossoms.

After a total of twenty minutes she was done with shopping and nearly in her turn to pay at the cash register, that was when she noticed a police officer at the entrance of the mall, he wore the usual attire but the little medal that identified the police seemed a bit different, though she couldn't be sure, she was still a bit far away, for a split second they exchanged gazes, a smirk appeared on his lips making her turn away and shiver, something about that just crept her out, she knew that feeling, she knew that smirk, and it was never good news. She paid for her stuff and quickly headed for the door avoiding to trade a glance with the police man, only to have her path blocked by his hand.

"Miss, I'm afraid I need to see your identification, we're looking for someone that mildly looks like yourself."

"Er…sure… can we just step outside though? This place is a little too hot for me, I need fresh air" she said paling a bit, either this was plain bad, or really really bad, she couldn't see his eyes behind the sun glasses, damn policemen and their intimidating accessories. He nodded grabbing her arm to make sure she wouldn't run away and they stepped outside, she put her bags down against a wall and pretended to search for her ID, inside she was praying the guys were watching.

"Hey Sunny?"  
"What now?" the yellow Lamborghini asked in a foul mood, he was trying not to think about the sun shedding his paint.

"Ashley just came out of that place with another human" his brother said in both a curious and anxious tone. Sunny turned on his alt form's sensors to look at the said girl.

"Isn't that one of their authorities?"

"Think she was caught doing something she shouldn't?"

"I don't think she's the type to attract trouble like you sides…"

Sideswipe nudged the yellow camaro lightly to wake him up.

"Bee." No response "BEE!" the horn suddenly blasted as if the yellow car had been startled from his nap.

"What?"

"We got trouble."

"Please tell me it's not a car jacker…"

"A what?"

"Never mind, what's the problem?"

"Check the entrance."

Ashley's heart almost swam in delight as she heard Bumblebee's horn, that had to mean they saw her, now for the tricky part.

"I'm sorry, I must have left it in the car…I'll go get it in a second, here I'll leave my things with you to guarantee I come back okay?" The cop just gave her that smirk again and nodded, she quickly proceeded to jog in the car's direction, though just as she was about to cross the street she heard a siren, and turning her head so quick it her neck nearly snapped, she saw a police cruiser heading her way at a surprising speed.

"ASHLEY LOOK OUT!" she heard three engine's starting but knew they wouldn't get there in time, without thinking she simply jumped into the air rolling and crashing against the black hood.

Surprisingly she didn't feel the front mirror even crack as she hit it and rolled over the top falling off the car on the back and onto the sweet pavement, the police cruiser stopped a few feet on her side, for a split second she thought the man was coming out to check if he had killed her by accident, but no such thing happened, she turned to look at the car with a pained look, her whole body was aching now and she got some mild cuts in the process.

To her utter horror the tires spun backwards as the car headed back for her in reverse, this time she was sure she couldn't jump over it. This time however the yellow form of a Camaro appeared out of who knows where and slammed the police cruiser sideways directing its course just far enough to miss her head by inches.

With an effort she was already trying to get before the car had even reversed she got to her feet shaky and wobbly, her head felt a little dizzy but her instincts were telling her what she needed to know, she had to get away, and fast.

Before she took more than three steps however the sound of shifting gears and whirring warned her of what was about to happen, looking back she saw the police cruiser change its shape, closely followed by the young scout who quickly attempted to stop him from charging again, he was holding him back, Bumblebee might have lacked in size like the others but he certainly compensated it by his wits and strength, not to mention agile feet, he knew exactly where to place them in order to stop the larger decepticon.

This was however when chaos reigned, people had started coming out of the mall and upon seeing the two gigantic metallic figures attempted to either run to their cars, down the street or back into the building, successfully making a disorientated ant colony getting in the way of larger creatures that didn't want to step on them, well at least Bumblebee didn't…Barricade was having no caution at all with that.

"Ashley!" she heard the car approaching before she even heard his voice, Sunstreaker had somehow managed to get in between the humans still in his alt mode and next to her. "Get in, we need to get you to safety!"

"But what about-"

"He can handle it, side's is here for back up if he needs it, now hurry!" upon saying this she saw his twin coming at high speeds towards the two transformers, the people had mostly cleared the road in fear of being run over so he had free path and slammed right into Barricade's legs. Ashley quickly got into Sunstreaker as she saw the gravel break with the decepticon's falling impact, this was far too dangerous. The seatbelt quickly tightened her to her seat as the yellow Lamborghini stepped on it. This seemed to get the black and white's attention though as he activated his primary weapon, his blade like hands started extending and spinning madly, making both Bumblebee and Sideswipe back away, she gulped.

"Now I know why you call him Barricade…" she said in a shaky voice looking out his rear view mirror.

Sunstreaker said nothing, he had four things to pay attention to: his brother's bond link, scanning the girl to see if she was in any way overly injured, contacting the remaining autobots and getting the hell out of there so the human could be safe.

Primus did he hate leaving his brother behind, usually Bumblebee was the one to do this mission, but he had been the fastest to get to barricade so he was now tangled with the decepticon, besides they had a score to settle, Sideswipe would be there as backup but mostly to make sure the humans wouldn't get too involved.

"**Sunstreaker to Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime please come in" **Ashley turned her head to his radio listening in to his communicator, after a few seconds a popping sound of static alerted them the connection had been made.

"**Optimus Prime here, what is the problem Sunstreaker?"** By the sound of calmness in his voice he had probably been resting.

"**We're under attack! I don't know how the pit Barricade got here so fast after our fight a few days ago but he's here! Bumblebee and Side's are holding him off, I have Ashley with me, she has some bruises but nothing too serious." **He sounded agitated, she could guess he was worried for the others, not that she blamed him, she was too. Just then another connection was made to their com links,

"**FRAG IT TO THE PIT SUNSTREAKER GET BACK HERE!BEE'S DOWN!" **Sideswipe's voice came out as if he was right in the middle of a fight, you could hear metal clashing viciously against each other. Her heart could have been stabbed and it still wouldn't hurt as much, bee was down? This was her fault! He had gotten into a fight to save her and …wait what exactly did these beings meant by "down?" was it for them someway to say dead? Could they even die? Fear started to take over her, she felt like crying but still didn't, worse of all Sideswipe had called his brother by his full name, meaning it was dead serious.

"**Hold on Side's! I'm coming!"**His brother said almost sounding desperate; she knew he was divided between protecting her and going back to his brother.

"**Sunstreaker, we're on our way, keep Barricade busy." **Optimus's voice said now a bit more alert.

"Sunny!" she called getting his attention, she knew this by the way his stirring wheel turned sideways. "Go help them, I'll wait out here, as long as you guys can keep him away from this location I'll be fine, I can handle it. They need you right now." She waited for his answer, he was probably in a deep thought, finally his door opened and he loosened the seatbelt that had been a bit too tight.

"stay here" he said firmly as she stepped out and he closed the door, zooming out back to the others.

She stared at his leave unsure of what else to do but stay put, really what could she do against a giant metallic form?

She sat down at the edge of the street walk waiting; this was somewhat familiar with their first night, without the exception that she was killing her brain thinking Bumblebee was probably dead. She could hear the crashing and smashing coming from the battle, but couldn't see anything because of the bloody mall standing in the way.

How the hell had this all started again? Oh yeah, police officer asked for her identification saying he was looking for someone… then the car came over and…she had just realised the cop had probably been a hologram.

"Damn it…" It had been her fault her friends were getting hurt, and she never let anyone get hurt because of herself, but it really was a completely unrealistic fight to go against the police cruiser.

"What am I thinking?! Since when have I been such a coward!?" she berated herself getting to her feet, she couldn't just stay there and wait, she had to at least be able to help the injured, that was the least she could do! She quickly made her way back running down the street wincing as her muscles were still protesting from the heavy treatment, she tore down the exit of the parking lot, having come from the other entrance this one was probably less risky. What she saw made her heart falter, cars crashed everywhere, holes and burned pavement spread around, the two Lamborghini's were fighting against the decepticon in close combat, which didn't look very wise considering the spinning blades as his hands kept throwing them back with incredible strength, if it were here she'd be mashed potato by now.

"Oh come on…don't get yourself chickened now!" she searched for the yellow camaro and thankfully found him a few feet away from the fight, enough to go by unnoticed.

She passed by a turned over truck whose cargo had been spread out and by some other cars until she reached the yellow form, he was still in Bi-pedal mode, but his arm had been completely torn off, she could see it too far away for her to drag it back, if she even could, he was leaking some sort of vibrant blue liquid from what could pass by as injuries and had numerous dents and scratches in his body parts, mainly his chest, it barely even had paint left there.

"Bee?!" she asked cautiously approaching the mech, not wanting to get an automatic defence reaction from him.

The mech initially had the said reaction, nearly jumping from his spot ready to strike whoever came near, but since he didn't see any towering form over him he probably realised it was a human, habbit was a good thing for once and his optics quickly settled on her form, she approached him a bit more hurriedly now.

"Oh my god! What happened to you?! Wait don't answer that…I don't think I want to know." She went for his arm at first but he quickly put his still remaining arm in the way. " Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you."

"Don't touch the energon" he said in a strained voice, his capacitator was at it again, he had probably screamed when he was hit.

"The liquid you mean? Okay, but let me at least have a look at that wound, I can't let you bleed to death" She had been told about energon during her question game with sideswipe, but hadn't actually seen it.

He reluctantly set his arm aside and his back fell completely flat against the ground so that he was facing the sky, that's when she noticed more energon was coming from under him, and that he could in fact lie down like that.

"Christ! Your wings are missing!" she said approaching to make sure, there was the gap of the said wings where all the energon was coming from, she didn't dare approach too much, the smell was too strong.

"They should be around here somewhere…" his voice was fading.

"Hey! Hey! Don't you dare turn off! Stay with me here, I'm going to see if I can find some tools from the delivery truck over there, keep yourself awake or I swear to whichever deity you believe in that I'll make you throw toast out of your butt!" she headed off without waiting for his bewildered answer and started rummaging around the boxes, keeping an eye open on the twin's battle, it wasn't looking so good, she had a feeling they'd resort to shooting soon." C'mon…there's gotta be something here I can use…just have to look well enough-aha!" she said triumphantly pulling out what she was looking for, it wasn't exactly the same as working tools from a garage but they'd have to do, grabbing an empty box and filling it with all of her needed items.

Making sure the path was clear, since the said shooting had indeed begun, she made her way back to the now wheezing camaro, his optic covers were shut but from the faint light coming from under them she could tell he was awake, that and he moved to look at her when he heard her dragging the box.

"I don't know that much about mechanics nor medicine but from what I can see you need those tubes to shut to keep that liquid in right?" a slight nod was her answer. " Well I don't know if this is gonna hurt or not but its my best shot…" She took out a spatula, it was a cooking one but it would have to do, she couldn't touch the leaky cables for fear of the liquid, and she wasn't sure if rubber gloves were going to do the trick, then she brought out a hair Iron.

"What in primus is that?" Bumblebee asked looking a bit fearfull.

"We use it to dry our hair, it should heat the rubber enough to close the tubes, but it won't be enough to make the er…energon burn." He shuddered. " Sorry it's the best I could find…Ratchet will have to fix you better when they get here."

"You managed to contact them?"

"Sunny did when he left to drop me…" she deliberately let out that she was going against orders. "By the way…thank you…for saving my life." She said while starting to close one of the tubes. He looked away trying not to think of the pain he was in.

"No need to thank me, it was my duty."

"No it wasn't…you weren't on a mission, and don't you dare say it is your duty to save every freaking human because that is just bullshit" he was a bit surprised by her language, since she usually wasn't this aggressive with it, but managed to smile in the end, he enjoyed this human just as much as Sam, they were curious creatures and always entertaining, plus they had straight out weird morals and sayings.

She closed a third tube making him wince, she glanced upwards to his face to make out if she made any mistake but once he relaxed she had the confirmation she could go on.

"I closed the three larger tubes, that should hold this side for a while, I need you to try and roll over so I can fix your back, think you can manage?" with a weak nod he did as told and she was facing the camaro's bleeding sore back, if it were human it probably would look like a whip had been trying to make its way into his flesh. She shivered at the thought and approached with a bit more care this time, there were a lot more leaks here and they were between tight spaces in his armour so it was hard to fix.

She was halfway done with the first wing's cavity when she heard an alarming sound, first it was an explosion, then a figure of red black and white flying past them and crashing at the end of the park, then Sunstreaker's desperate yell for his brother.

"SIDES!YOU FRAGGER I'LL SLAGGING KILL YOU!" the yellow Lambo had literally lost his mind, he shot, hit, heck he did everything he could to reach the suddenly stunned decepticon.

Sunstreaker no longer minded the scratches in his paintjob, he didn't mind the dents, his optics were flaring a dangerous blue, almost turning white as he hammered down on barricade, yet he left too many openings.

"Shit he's gonna get hammered if he doesn't finish this soon!" she tried to look at sideswipe but he was too far away. She quickly went back to fixing Bumblebee's back, she needed this done, and pronto, where the hell was that back up?!

"Ashhhh" bee's voice came in a hiss, she ignored him " Ashhlleyyy"

"I'm here, I'm here, just hang in there."

"Y-you neeed to r-r-runnn" his voice was failing.

"Not without you guys, and don't argue with me on that!" she finally finished one of the wing cavities and turned to the other.

Suddenly the expected sound came, Sunny's body went flying, how the heck did that bot even do that?! Both Lambo's were taller and probably stronger than him, how could he beat three autobots when he was just one?!

The decepticon smirked seeing his third foe now done, he had numerous injuries but he could deal with those, he turned his scanners on and found what he was looking for.

Optics glared at human eyes, and human eyes glared at red optics, he started to make his way over, she didn't move form her spot next to Bumblebee he was trying to at get up, he had gathered enough energon when she closed his main lines, but he had absolutely no chance in this state.

"Hand over the human, scrapheap." His grave voice said. She was surprised he actually used English, but had the distinct impression he only used it to scare her, well that wasn't going to work. Before she could say anything however Bumblebee's leg came in between them as he took a shaky defensive stance.

"Ashley get out of hereee" he said motioning in a shoo motion with his hand, she glared at it.

"No way! Why the hell do you want me anyway you rusted old toaster! I have done nothing to you!" Bumblebee got nervous, not only was she not running, she was disobeying, and insulting one of his nemesis, this was going to hurt…

"Like you wouldn't know fleshbag" his hands spun in a threatening motion. She glared back at him not having the slightest idea what he was talking about.

"Ashley go! Now! That's an order!" Bumblebee said in an agitated voice as Barricade smirked, this wasn't good.

"You heard him fleshie, run while you can, within a while I'll catch up with and we can have some fun together." He let a low chuckle of amusement. At that time Bumblebee lunged at him, throwing him to the ground, the two rolled viciously, but without one of his arms Bumblebee couldn't get fight back with one side and Barricade used this to his advantage, successfully pinning the yellow bot down and rolling his hand ready to dismantle his face slowly.

Ashley didn't even need to think. She grabbed a clothe from the box she brought, she had intended to use it to clean the fluids once she was done, and then grabbed a piece of broken gravel from the ground, putting it inside and spinning the cloth above her head she called.

"Hey! Goliath!" the decepticon stupidly looked up at the human only to be hit in an optic by the gravel she let out of the clothing. " That's to show I CAN fight a stupid beast like you!"

Optic shattered, Barricade sat back and loud an ear piercing mechanical howl of pain, upon his glare setting back on her she knew what to do.

"Ohhhh shit…" she ran, closely followed by thundering steps, she faintly hear Bee shouting something but didn't even want to make out what it had been, she weaved her way between larger cars, effectively slowing him down. A shot however hit the path in front of her stopping her on her tracks, she had no time, clawed fingers closed over her with such for she felt the ground break and hit her with dust.

"Now I have you…" sneered the deep sadistic voice.

* * *

Cliffy :D must have been my biggest chappie, hope you like it


	5. Holding on

Last chapter:

"Hey! Goliath!" the decepticon stupidly looked up at the human only to be hit in an optic by the gravel she let out of the clothing. " That's to show I CAN fight a stupid beast like you!"

Optic shattered, Barricade sat back and loud an ear piercing mechanical howl of pain, upon his glare setting back on her she knew what to do.

"Ohhhh shit…" she ran, closely followed by thundering steps, she faintly hear Bee shouting something but didn't even want to make out what it had been, she weaved her way between larger cars, effectively slowing him down. A shot however hit the path in front of her stopping her on her tracks, she had no time, clawed fingers closed over her with such for she felt the ground break and hit her with dust.

"Now I have you…" sneered the deep sadistic voice.

* * *

Now:

Trying to remain level headed while facing what could very easily be her death only one thing came to mind. " why do you even want me?!" it came out a shriek but who would be able to talk correctly in such a situation?

The massive fist surrounded her body lifting her from the ground and approaching her to his good optic, the other kept sparking and leaking energon.

"I am going to have some fun with you indeed before I take you to starscream."

"starscream? Is that another one of you or is it some kind of end of the world for me?" oddly enough crappy jokes were the only way she could remain relatively calm. The fist tightened a bit and she hissed biting her bottom lip to avoid screaming. She was NOT going to give this monster that satisfaction. A little bit more and he'd probably break her bones, but he kept it just tight enough not to, slowly giving her pain, this guy was a master in torture that much was clear, he'd enjoy every single second and took his time with it. Suddently his grip became not so tight and he turned his head to look up, for a while she couldn't make out anything of it, his metallic brows went down in a visible frown and that's when she started hearing engines approaching. She sighed in relief, help was here!

A resounding horn reached audio receptors and ears along with loud and collective sounds of transformation, she couldn't see them because Barricade held her facing himself.

"Release the human" Optimus's calm voice commanded from behind.

"Music to my ears…" she whispered to herself wincing at the pain she felt as the decepticon tightened his grip again.

"No chance autoscum, you move any step forward and I kill the human" he squeezed tighter making her head jerk back, she still bit her lip to the point it started bleeding all the while keeping up her mantra.

_don't scream, don't__ cry, don't freak_ she thought.

An explosion took place right at Barricade's feet, she could even feel the heat from it as the dust lifted around her, but the decepticon kept her out of reach.

"Quit bluffin' decepticreep, if ye wanted tah kill the human you would have let her die right now instead of shielding her from the blast."

"OH SO THAT MAKES IT OKAY FOR ME TO DIE FROM YOUR BLAST ANYWAY?!" she shrieked, god did she want to see whoever took that shot, but by the voice it had been Ironhide.

"Fine, you want the human, go ahead" taking a step back she felt him pull his arm back, without warning he swung it forward realising his grip, effectively throwing her several feet into the air towards the autobots, problem was…she was going to go past them, no one would reach in time, she saw a blur of their colours and the gravel up ahead, closed her eyes and prepared for impact, as expected, it was hard, and she blacked out almost instantly, that didn't mean she didn't feel the pain.

"Icaughther!Icaughther!" Blurr's panicked voice called as he instantly ran back to his group and was assaulted by the CMO.

"Knocked out…no wonder, that will hurt once she wakes up but miraculously no bones broken… nice catch blurr." The medic said as he examined the girl in the blue racer's hands. The metal had been hard, but not as hard as the ground could have been, plus the way blurr caught her, by pure luck made it so she wouldn't literally splash into it.

They turned to their two other companions, Optimus had given the order not to follow the decepticon as they had more important matters at hand. Three of his soldiers were down, they took priority over capturing Barricade.

Ironhide had gone futher ahead to gather Sideswipe while Optimus got his report from the still awakened Bumblebee.

Rathcet's com turned to life as he looked away from the frail human.

"**Ratchet this is Ironhide, you better get back here…Sideswipe isn't looking so good."**The old mech's gruff voice had a morbid tone, and that was more than enough to motivate the medic as he ran over.

Blurr saw it best to approach his leader and the young scout for fear of any sneak attack he might miss, while the human was in his hands he was probably the main target.

"How is she?" Optimus asked as he approached, soft Optics peering over at the organic form with what any autobot could tell was pure remorse.

"justknockedout" the leader nodded turning back to his scout.

"The feeling you described must have been what caused your systems to hold back, somehow Barricade must have recovered Frenzy and used him to sabotage your body while you were fighting. You are lucky he didn't cut your main line my friend." Bumblebee snorted at that thinking how sick the decepticons could be to strike such a low blow.

"He kept going after the girl sir, even after Sunny left with her." His systems were just begging for him to shut down and recharge, automatic repairs wanting to kick into place, his wing panels hurt beyond words, that was the big problem with those parts of his body, extremely sensitive.

"That would explain why he was reluctant to let her die when Ironhide blasted him" the leader said calmly ignoring the frowns that instantly grew on the other two.

"I am going to convince prowl to put him in the brig for the rest of the cycle if he ever comes"

"I will deal with Ironhide's rashness later…did Barricade happen to mention why he wanted young Ashley?"

"No sir, he did mention however that he was taking her to starscream, meaning he is probably back on earth."

"Optimus we're ready to leave, just one slight problem though, we have three non-transforming soldiers to take back, and you can only take one of them." The CMO pointed back as Ironhide dragged a half tended to sideswipe, his chest was sparking and he was still out like a light. Sunny however was dragging himself behind them, having been awakened by the medic.

"I told you I can drive back! Just take care of Sides!" Ratchet hit him on top of his head with his palm lightly, the mech was already injured enough, he didn't have to be too rough.

"Quit acting though, you're still suffering from spark chock, you could easily loose control while driving back and I'm not risking another chassis to fix."

The yellow mech growled something under his breath well enough for Ratchet not to hear but didn't argue back.

"I can transform actually, I just wouldn't be able to drive, since my tire went off along with my arm…" Bumblebee managed to say, his voice hitching again.

"Exactly…Ironhide can perhaps pull sunstreaker the way back, but it's a completely different story with these two.

Prime sighed, this was indeed a complicated situation, he had to choose to leave behind one of his soldiers, that was never an easy choice…

"I'll stay behind sir" Bumblebee cut in through his thoughts. "Sideswipe is worse off than I am, I can hold on for a few hours hidden, he can't wait. Plus Ashley fixed my damages well enough for the time being I shouldn't be at risk anymore."

"I was wondering who did that" Ratchet said with a curious look towards the scout. "How did she manage?" but he didn't get his reply as Optimus spoke up again trying to regain the attention.

"That's settled then…Bumblebee will stay behind until I come back to pick him up, until then, Blurr, you stay with him and stand on guard in case any decepticon attacks." Both nodded, Blurr replying with a "sir!", the other was far too tired and quickly proceeded to transforming and picking a nice spot in the middle of all the turned cars.

"Sorry Bee" Sunstreaker said as the others started to transform aswell so they could leave. Blurr put the young human on Ratchet's cab along with Bumblebee's arm and wings, the parts were important since earth didn't have the same materials they had unless they forged it and that wasn't an easy task.

Once done he sat back next to his comrade keeping his sensors on as he watched the others leave.

* * *

Ashley felt her head spin as soon as she started to wake up, something wasn't right, it smelt like anaesthetics but when she opened her eyes there wasn't the typical blinding light, instead she found herself inside an ambulance.

If it hadn't been for Bumblebee's parts she would have thought she had been knocked out by bullies and imagined the whole thing.

"I see your awake." Ratchet's voice reached her from all around.

"Ratchet? Urgghhh" she had tried to sit up only to fall back in her place.

"I suggest you do not sit up, I'm surprised you haven't broken anything."

"So am I ,to be honest…what happened?"

"You were thrown into the air, but Blurr managed to catch you before you hit the ground, still the impact was a bit rough." She groaned

"Remind me to thank him, and to explicitly explain to you lot that the difference between metal and pavement isn't that much…I thought for sure that was it…"

"It shall be reminded" he said simply, keeping his attention in following the others.

She stood there in silence for a while, her head trying to make out the thoughts and recovering its logical sense.

"What happened to the others?"

"Bumblebee remains minimally stable thanks to you so he had to stay behind, Blurr is watching over him though until Optimus can go get him. Sunstreaker has a few dents, the usual, he is in a bit of spark chock though because of sideswipe, he is headed for the operation room as soon as we get to base." She paled visibly, some of her vital signs dropping. " He will be all right, otherwise I would have not allowed him to get to base, I would have performed the operation on the field.

Despite the medic's warning and assurance she sat up and leaned against his wall, pushing her knees against her chest and hugging herself, she felt horrible, they had gotten so badly hurt…and all because of her…all because of…she groaned, she'd have to go shopping again. Slowly she chuckled lightly at herself, it was bitter.

"Mind telling blurr to see if my shopping bags are still there? And if so to bring them once he comes back? I don't want to sound uncaring, but this whole thing started with those, might as well get them to avoid happening again."

"It will be done." He said averting his scans from sideswipe on Optimus's cab and over to the young human, over all, his conclusion was that she was a bit depressed, he couldn't blame her for that.

"Its my fault isn't it?" she asked after a bit of a pause, her voice was trembling a bit but she felt secluded enough to let herself have some shame.

Ratchet hesitated for a moment, evaluating the human for a little while, however it would do nothing to deny it.

"In a way, those three were bound to get in trouble again as usual though…"

"That …that thing was after me, if I hadn't been so spoiled, if I had paid more attention! This wouldn't have happened!"

"Did you get to find out why Barricade wanted to capture you?" Ratchet asked calmly, it was the best way to deal with humans from his experience.

"N-no….and yes…he said I should know…but I have no idea…I didn't even knew you guys until the twins helped me out."

"So basically you're as clueless as us" he concluded and both sighed.

"I don't know what a cybertronian could possibly want for me…I mean I don't have any experience with mechanics or electronic in general…I'm not connected with the government and I don't think he'd find me a suitable enough hostage to get advantadge over all of you…"

"You do have a point…"

"What made Bumblebee's charge so important to them?" she asked, hoping to find her answer.

"Samuel Witwicky is a descendant of someone who found Megatron by accident, in the process he acquired the location of the all spark and unconsciously passed it on to the next generation."

"I don't really think I have any ancestor with that kind of history" she snorted looking out the small tiny window of his vehicle form.

"Are you certain?"

"Huh? Well yeah…most of them are either architects or writers…no biggie…" the old autobot pondered a bit over the term 'biggie' before addressing the human again.

"Perhaps Barricade mistook you for someone else, though that usually isn't his type of thing, he was trained to locate and assassinate his targets…but I suppose humans are quite different, to us your kind are somewhat different to distinguish."

"Really?"

"Well most of us…Jazz probably found it easy, since he had all that obsession of his over style…"

"Oh…" there was another uncomfortable pause, she tried looking through the window again but winced when a bruise got a little too real and sat back down. "How's sideswipe holding on?"

"He'll live" was the short reply. Immediately his scanners indicated her mood was dropping. "I actually have a favour to ask you, if you are anywhere interested in helping the twins out." Rocketing right out of the scales, her heartbeat accelerated in excitement and glee, a will to somehow simply say how sorry she was.

"I'll do whatever I can! Just tell me what to do!" he chuckled lightly, something that seemed mildly uncharacteristic of him.

"I need you to stay with Sunstreaker while I operate on his brother, he is still in spark shock and I doubt he'll relax until Sideswipe is stable and safe. If you can, distract him, he tends to go into wrong thoughts at these times and gets desperate, if you can't manage that at least give him company."

"That's all?"

"That is all"

"Sure I guess…it's the least I could do…" just then Ratchet stopped and she felt herself swaying a bit with the movement. The doors opened and she didn't even have time to try and reach for the doors when a black hand came in, at first she panicked, thinking it was barricade again, then she noticed the number of digits and their shape, this wasn't the sadistic decepticon.

"Come on younglin' we ain't got all day" came Ironhide's gruff voice. She carefully went over and climbed on, being brought out into the day light, the sun was still up high and there was a light breeze.

Ratchet transformed and quickly proceeded to head over to the red twin, his yellow partner holding onto Ironhide by the shoulder, he couldn't stand properly, one of his feet was partially destroyed.

She felt horrible once more, the twin wouldn't even look at her, he couldn't get his optics off his brother's form as Optimus took him away into a different hall, Ironhide was taking them to the rec room.

"Get over it soldier" Ironhide said shoving the young bot a bit, he was taller than the twins but by little. Sunstreaker growled at him not in the mood.

"I'll stay with him Ironhide, you can go don't worry." She said climbing off his hand and onto the couch where he was putting down the battered soldier.

"You sure about that runt?" she smiled up at him; it felt good to have so many beings concerned about her.

"Sure, I think I can handle him…he just needs to let some steam out." Made a snorting sound with his..er…whatever it was.

"Your funeral" he said walking away.

She watched him leave; once he was gone she turned back to the yellow Lambo who was resuming his time staring at the pale ceiling.

"Sunny?" No answer "Sunstreaker?" still no answer, she crawled up onto his leg proceeding to his chest so she could sit on his shoulder, avoiding wounded looking areas. "C'mon Sunny speak to me, your supposed to shine here, not sit and brood!" She received a vague glance but that was all before he turned back to the ceiling. "Sideswipe wouldn't want you to be like this." That seemed to have hit the spark, she felt his body mildly jerk, as if he had stopped himself. " You know I'm right…and your probably not helping him in anyway by staying like this."

"I felt him fade away…its happened so many times…I'm supposed to be there to protect him…" Ashley smiled she could sympathise with him, she had wished many times that happened to her, that she had someone to care about in the same way.

"You guys must have been through a lot…but at least you both know you'll always have each other through all that right? Right now Sideswipe is counting on that, you can't just…give up on him."

"I didn't give up on him" he said sounding a bit more like the irritated Sunstreaker she had gotten to know.

"I know you didn't, but you were tempted to." She patted him on the side of the head. "You guys didn't have to do that though…you could just have ignored the whole thing and left...it was safer for you"

"Shut up, we wouldn't do that, we're not that low"

"Anyone else would…no point in you guys not doing the same." she shrugged.

"Humans are strange"

"Nah…we're just humans…" he tried to figure that out, he really did, but he couldn't. She cuddled up against his neck, it was funny how metal could actually feel smooth sometimes, Sunny's in special, it was probably of all the special care he paid to it. Even now in his battered, dented and scratched state he felt that way. "Don't worry, he'll make it, if he doesn't we can both go wherever he goes and bring his ass back to earth"

"Aft…"

"Whatever" she said starting to drift into sleep.

He waited for a while, watching the human falling into her recharge cycle, she looked far worse than the day before but mostly just tired, he was a little worse off but nothing a soldier couldn't handle. Smiling he leaned back careful not to make her slip and off lined his optics, he felt a bit calmer now, enough for him to rest himself.

The next thing Ashley felt she was being picked up by large fingers, she didn't quite register it at first until she blearily opened her eyes and looked around in the darkness, two bright optics stared down at her being the only source of light.

"Oh…hey blurr…"she said in a slurred manner. He nodded preferring not to speak while he took her out of the room, once out she could see he was a bit more relieved. " Iwastobringyoutothemedbaybutyouwereasleep,I'msorrytohaveawakenedyou" she blinked at him a few times, she was way too tired to make that out.

"How's sideswipe doing?" if blurr was sent to get her he probably knew this by now.

"HeisslowlyrecoveringbutofficerRatchetsayshewillbejustfine."

"Good…Sunny will be happy." She let a small smile creep its way to her lips, it actually felt strange to smile.

The light blue mech walked through the halls a bit too fast but she had learned this was just his way of being and he was probably already making a large effort to walk this …slowly.

The young teen tried not to nod off back to dreamland while on his hand but it was becoming rather difficult.

The med bay doors opened and she found herself back in the overly sterile room. Ratchet was over by a berth making his final notes into a datapad and giving one last glance at a recharging Bumblebee whose arm had been repaired already.

"Is he all right?" she asked as soon as they came near the CMO.

"Your emergency mending saved his life, you have my congratulations on that" she blushed lightly shrugging it off.

"Logic…that was all.."

"And how is Sunstreaker fairing? I noticed Sideswipe started having a better chance at some point." He asked blurr.

"Hewasasleepsir" the CMO's optic ridges lifted I clear surprise.

"Asleep?"a nod. "Well that's a rare thing to happen, I suppose this has something to do with you" he suggested glancing down at the human girl.

"We talked…he calmed a bit after that"

"I have to employ you to do that more times " he said with a snort picking her up from the other's hand. "Optimus had to go on with the meeting with the government officer without you." He informed, her eyes widened in horror.

"I completely forgot about that! What happened?"

He put her down on the empty berth and started examining her injuries.

"Well…for starters your people don't want you to go back home because of what happened today, however we only agreed to it as long as you stayed near us, I doubt your government would be able to protect you from a deception when three of us hardly managed." She stared at the distance, unsure of what to think of the matter. "They have made a research on your family background and found nothing that could come by of any interest to us."

"So…where am I staying then?"

"You will stay with us until Sam gets back from college, once that happens you will move into his household, his family has already agreed thinking you are an exchange student. They think you are sister to one of Sam's friends."

"Whoopie…" she said with lack of enthusiasm moving away his finger when he went to apply some sort of cream on one of her bruises. "I don't do creams, their icky. How long do you think this will last though?"

"I can't really say, only time will tell. Hopefully we will find out what caught their attention about you." She looked over at the datapad he was feeling out frowning slightly in concentration. "Are those codes?" he looked up from his notes studying the young human.

"Yes, these are my medical notes, I use a special sort of symbols so that it is easier for myself to write and read fast enough."

"Bet I can crack that code" she said still looking quite sleepy, Blurr who had been observing the two actually backed away when he saw the amused grin on the medic's faceplates.

"Don't be foolish, no human has enough knowledge to do so."

"Really? Because that looks pretty much like a description about how my ribcages are sore to give me pain for a good two to three weeks with proper care and medication." His optics brightened a bit, optic ridges lifting in pure bewilderment.

"How did you do that?" he asked giving her a suspicious glare, she shrugged her shoulders and looked at bumblebee for lack of a more interesting thing to look at.

"I'm good with codes, always have."

"You have just translated milinia old codes that have absolutely no origin from your planet and under less than five minutes, that is not a regular ability among humans."

"So I played a lot of brain games when I was young " she groaned feeling a bit annoyed, she was still tired and just wanted to go back to sleep.

"That is not what I meant, this could very well be WHY the decepticons want you" her attention returned as she looked at the yellow CMO confused.

"Come again?"

"Your ability to decode, it must be why they want you"

"And here I thought Kubrix's cube would never get me into trouble…"Her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh god…"

"I assume you realised how serious this actually is? You can probably hack into anything if you can decipher this that easily."

"I know what they want me to do…" she interrupted looking as if her soul had been taken away, he looked down at her expectantly. " I think they want me to code the all spark back."

* * *

Good bad? I'm not sure, btw if you didn't get her insult at barricade in the last chapter Goliath was a cyclop and supposedly david threw a rock at his eye using a sling to throw the said rock, effectively bringing down the giant.

Review please! 


	6. A bet

Hey, sorry for the delays guys!I was in a fandom stage where I could only play with new action figures finish my animation exam and miss my classmates for I shall never be with them again. this chapter started out a bit hard but I think it went better afterwards hope you like it.

* * *

The more she stood there the more she started doubting herself, it had taken about half an hour to explain their confused theory to an even more confused prime until he finally saw the logic behind their jumbled words.

"So in simple terms, you two think Ashley is able to recreate the allspark?"

"Not exactly sir, more like decode it, if we can get the core codes from the allspark there could be a possibility of replicating it." Ratchet explained, the young girl shivered in his shoulder and slapped his audio receptor.

"Don't say it like that! Its creepy to think that replicating a god is possible."

"It is possible to replicate the allspark?" Prime asked, she couldn't really tell his expression, mask over his mouth and all, but he was probably just trying to fake his surprise.

"In theory…." Ratchet said " The only problem would be transferring its core energy, that's why we need those codes, for centuries our race has tried it and we never understood it."

"And you believe this because the human managed o decode your own notes, who up until now no bot managed to because you have terrible handwriting?"

"He has terrible hand writing?" Ashley snorted, but didn't say anymore when Ratchet made a shooing motion wanting her not to speak at the moment. She sighed and looked away.

"Whether she can or not I don't know, but if there's a chance to save the allspark…"

"If the allspark can be replicated or not is beyond my concern Ratchet, right now what worries me is that the decepticons most likely think the same, therefore putting her in danger we cannot protect her from that easily…"

"Theeennn…how come they know this? And why only now that I found you lot?"

"You do not know?" She looked at Ratchet uncertain.

"Well we didn't exactly get that far yet…we were a bit too excited…sorry."

"I'll have my men try to figure out, in the mean time I believe its past your bed time" Prime said, she raised an eyebrow at him.

"Never thought I'd hear that from a gigantic leader of alien robots…Don't worry, I slept almost all afternoon when I got back…I'm a bit jumpy now…I'll just stroll around until I get tired." She patted the lime yellow shoulder as a sign she wanted to get down and was met with a hand uncaringly grabbing her by the waist and putting her down, thankfully he didn't harm her, he just wasn't as gentle as the others because he was in a mood. Not having the Prime happy about the news was probably not on top of his list. With a quick goodbye she ran out of the large room and adventured into the halls, hopefully she'd remember the way, all that talk about not being tired was pure lie, but she really wanted to go see the allspark now, she needed to make sure she could decode it, she needed a better look at it.

"Need I tell you she lied just now?"

"I think I am old enough to tell that even from my soldiers Ratchet…" Prime said sitting back down in his chair it gave an annoying squeak, a sign it could give in under his weight, he was starting to hate that sound. "She probably needs time, it is not every day that a human comes to face such consequences after all…especially from a talent they could use for good or evil depending on their choice."

"You aren't suggesting the human would use it to get the decepticons to leave her alone do you?"

"I strongly hope not Ratchet, but we all make mistakes, especially when we're scared."

"Lets hope not, still it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on her"

"True…" he seemed to ponder for a while his optics loosing a bit of their glow as he did.

"Are you going to let her try it?"

He looked up an expression of deep thought in his faceplates.

"Try what?"

"Studying the allspark, Optimus you most of all should know what it would mean if we could replicate it. Our race would no longer be doomed into extinction! Pit I bet we could even fix Jazz!"he was a bit excited about such an idea from the moment the girl told him she could decode the blasted thing.

"Jazz is dead Ratchet, I know you feel responsible for not being able to fix him, but there are just some things you can't fix."

"Then at least think about not being extinct!" His leader looked up at him surprised by the medic's outburst, usually his soldiers would be a bit more collected about their worries, but he could understand this. Ratchet was after all a medic, and as a medic he cared about everyone's well being as well as future members of our race, he had helped give life to new protoforms before. "Without the allspark no protoform will be able to survive long enough unless we have femmes, so I ask you, with that chance out of the way what hope do we have?"

"I know where your getting at Ratchet, but think about it a bit, in the end wasn't it making our war only worse?"

The medic stared at his leader, an obvious frown on his faceplates, he knew this, he knew it very well, but he just didn't want to admit it.

"Sometimes I wish Elita One was here to get those thoughts our of your dusty processor." And without even a last salute the medic left the room, not wanting to really vent his anger out on his leader.

* * *

Ashley stood at the entrance of the room staring at the cabinet where the small shard lay, walking a few steps forward she could see it was glowing again like before, a faint blue hue, lighting up its symbols as if begging her to read them.

"Hey there…you probably don't understand my language, heck you probably don't understand a single word I'm saying…" it felt weird talking to a piece of metal but hey, she spent the last days speaking to giant robots. " I was asked to somehow replicate you, to transfer your power into that replica, how do you feel about that?" the glow intensified a bit for a short second. "can you even feel?" another short glow "I guess that's a yes…I'm not sure what you think about all this but the autobots apparently really need you, and…I can't just deny them this favour, they did a lot for me already, they saved my skin twice already, don't you think they deserve some peace of mind at least?" another soft glow, she sighed leaning onto the grass. And looking at the ceiling " this is stupid…"

Suddenly the glow stopped completely, and looking at the door she could hear why, someone was coming, apparently the shard didn't want its creations to know it was still there and kicking.

A black form entered, at first she was a bit scared because she didn't recognize him, but the blue optics glaring down at her calmed her and she recognized him finally mostly by the large cannons.

"Hey Ironhide." She said waving weakly.

" What are you doing here runt?" he said not in a rude way but still with his gruff voice.

"I was…I was just checking the shard out again…it's complicated…Ratchet and Prime will probably tell you soon enough. What about you?"

"Searching for that slagger that likes calling himself Sunstreaker." He looked irritated at the thought.

"He's missing?" a nod.

"He's been brooding all over the place, avoiding everyone, this time it really got him, Sideswipe must have been in a pretty bad condition."

"I heard you guys saying something about sparkshock…is that why he's like that?" she asked walking over to him, he didn't pay any attention to the shard, he was paying more attention to Jazz's body.

"Yeh…Sparkshock is when your bonded to another and that other suffers or dies, usually its counterpart can feel it almost as bad."

"bonded? As in connected? " he nodded. "So basically he felt sideswipe's pain, his own, and on top of it he was conscious enough to know his brother was about to die?"

"In a very short way to say it yeh. Ya haven't seen'im have yeh?"

"Sorry no…not ever since I was brought to the medbay, I left him in the rec room back then. Did you try there?"

"Not yet, Ratchet usually dents anyone that tried to even get in there when he's with a patient."

"Well he's out of his medbay, so…"

"Medbay it is then" he grunted." You comin'?"

"Nah…I don't want to ruin a possible moment between those two…I'll go look for Blurr, he as supposed to get my stuff when they brought Bumblebee." The black mech nodded and headed out, his large feet pounding powerfully all the way, even after he disappeared from the hall she could still hear him.

She herself headed out of the room but stopped at the door to look inside once more, the shard was glowing again. "Cya…bye Jazz" she said looking at the dead autobot with some sympathy.

Blurr could be easily found, just not easily caught, the sound of his tires speeding away in the training room were more than a clue, trouble was getting him to stop so she could talk to him. The speedster was a phenomenon of speed, living up to his name all she could see was a light blue blur circling the arena, the counter was on meaning he was probably trying out a record. She sat down, waiting for him to finish, if there was one thing she knew about speed, it was that it got you tired very quickly so it didn't last long before the racer had to stop.

When he finally stopped she had her ears ringing from the screech of his tires. He didn't look one bit exhausted, though if it had been a cybertronian watching they would be able to tell his body was overheating.

"Hey there" she greeted raising a hand. He looked down surprised, apparently not expecting to see her.

"What are you doing here?" she raised an eyebrow, he didn't talk fast. " what?"

"Your speaking normally…" they stared for a few short seconds.

"That happens after training a lot. It'll come back to normal in a while" she groaned. "I ask again, what are you doing here? If Ironhide finds you here…"

"Ironhide is busy searching for Sunny" she said waving him off. " I came to ask if you got my stuff last night."

"Oh yes. Those plastic recipients with other items your kind uses on a daily basis. " she raised an eyebrow taking note on his need to make sentences complete.

"Yeah…plastic bags, where did you put them? I'm kind of hungry and I have food there."

"I'll take you to them, their in the shooting launch."

"You guys have a shooting launch?" she asked as she was picked up from the ground.

"It was built in case we ever need to leave or if one of our few aerials make it here."

"You can be aerial? As in a plane?" he nodded

"Its rare on autobots, but there are a few exceptions, if any survived it is most likely an aerial, since travelling in space is easier for them."

"Sweet…I hope one gets here while I'm here, I'd like to see one" she grinned.

"Its unlikely…"

"Party pooper…" she said slouching a bit in his hand.

* * *

Things had started to get better in the next days, she got her corner in the rec room a bit more comfortable for her liking and sideswipe had been discharged from the med bay, meaning he was out and into action in what was an apparent routine of pranks.

There had been a signal they picked up and it meant a new arrival was coming to earth, whether friend or foe they didn't know but this was good enough reason to delay her meeting with the officials once again. Everyone had started making bets between them, especially the twins.

They were all currently in the rec room, putting up a data pad with the said bets, Optimus even participated saying it was good for their morals, but he also had shown to be a bit anxious, this could as easily be very bad if it were a decepticon.

"There, now did everyone get their bets up? Who's missing? There's a slot for one more!" Sideswipe invited cheerfully. He looked down at the small human observing them from her table. " Ashley! You want to bet?"

"Me? What the hell went in your processor and ate it? I hardly know any of your kind, I only know from the stories I heard!Plus what would I bet?" Sides seemed to think it for a while.

"How about you give us all a wash if you loose, and if we don't then we're stuck with taking you anywhere you want in town without complaints" Sunny suggested.

Ashley pondered on his offer for a while, and then smirked.

"Fine, but you gotta keep your promise!"

"Great!" cheered the red lambo.

Bumblebee who was sitting beside her looked over curiously, the human had that expression that usually meant it either had a sadist thought or it was up to no good.

"Who're you betting on?" Sideswipe waited anxiously to put in her bet.

"Prowl" the twins seemed to jerk back at the name, to which Bumblebee just laughed whole heartedly.

"Nice bet, your jinxing it."

"Thanks, I was hoping for that."

"If she wins this bet I'll be a real sore looser" sunny said in a groan as his brother put in her bet.

She stared up at the data pad displayed for all to view, she had heard of most of the names in there but could hardly remember any of those. The bets were the following:

Prime- Elita One

Ironhide- Any possible femme

Ratchet – wheeljack

Blurr – Jetfire

Sunstreaker – cliffjumper

Sideswipe – red alert

Bumblebee – Arcee

Ashley – Prowl

The curious thing was everyone had voted mostly on who they hoped would come the most, though she was guessing Ironhide's bet was just to cover up for who he'd really wish to come. Though in Ratchet's case she was betting he was wishing for the said wheeljack NOT to come, she concluded this because of his often grimace every time he read his own bet.

They were due to arrive around ten that night and the autobots had regretfully to get ready for any possible decepticon, even Ironhide seemed slightly reluctant about tuning his cannons, and that was a rare sight.

On another sore note Ashley had been forbidden to leave the base to go with them, which meant someone was stuck with her, that someone happened to be bumblebee, not that she didn't like him, she was getting along great, but he was also in a foul mood about it.

When the time came they watched the rest leave at the far end of the desert, oh this was definitely not amusing.

"Guess you wouldn't be interested in sneaking behind them?" the yellow bot looked down at her studying her for a few seconds trying to make out if she was being serious or not.

"I thought you'd never ask" he said changing into his camaro form and opening the door. A broad smile spread across her face and she jumped in pulling up the seat belt excitedly.

"Won't you get in trouble for this bee?"

"Any punishment is worth it if this is an autobot arriving." Was his answer as he sped up after the others careful to put on a mild cloaking system up just so they wouldn't pick his signature.

"So…who do you think is going to win the bet?" she asked leaning in over his steering wheel and looking up at the stars while he drove.

"You actually, Prowl is a logic choice, he'd follow sunny and sides anywhere just to keep them in line, plus since jazz was here the chances of him coming become more likely."

"huh?"

"Jazz was Prowl's bond mate, and he took care of sunny and sides since they were found in the war field."

"Oh…must be a cool guy then"

"…well… I wouldn't exactly call him 'cool' but he's a great mech. He found the twins and brought them to the ark before I was found myself."

"You were found in the war fields too?"

"as a sparkling yes, I was incredibly lucky, sunny and sides were a little older and had each other, I was by myself, it was pure luck really."

"Oh? How old were you?" he paused a bit probably doing a conversion of time

"Well if I compare it to human standards I would have been two years old then."

"Holy-"

"Language"

"sorry. How did you survive that? What happened?" she suddenly felt immense pitty for the camaro, and hoped with two lambos hadn't been that young.

"I don't remember really, but according to the others Ironhide found me in the rumble, nearly crushed me under his feet."

"Now I see what you meant with incredibly lucky…being crushed by that guy can't be pretty…"

"Actually Ironhide can be surprisingly tender when no one else is looking, out of all the autobots he raised me the most."

"Oh? Wouldn't guess it in a million years…he looks too…"

"Rough?"

"Yeah…I guess you can say that"

"Ironhide is all thick metal but he has a soft spark deep inside. Whenever he was actually rough with me it was because I deserved it or because I really needed to learn something the hard way. Otherwise he'd never be that way with me. Now he loosens up a bit more but he's still my guardian"

"So he's kind of like a foster parent?"

"In a way…"

"Interesting…"

"What about the twins?"

"Prowl found them, I think they worked for attraction shows before, they would have been around seven by your standards I think."

"Wow…"

"Oh! I think we're arriving. They stopped up ahead." She got out of his inside to let him change and the two sat down on the dunes to stare up at the sky, a few lights were appearing in the sky. She quickly counted them and gasped.

"seven! Man now I reaaaallyy wish those aren't depecticons! Then again if they are autobots the base will get crowded…" the robot besides her didn't answer her, staring up in wonder.

Within seconds the lights were getting brighter and larger until the line of fire hit the sand between the two little spies and the other autobots.

Bumblebee was ready in case he had to pick up the small human and make a dash for it, the smoke started to clear off and silver protoforms emerged, each becoming larger.

The smallest was a slightly taller than Bumblebee and in many ways looked a like although slimmer looking. Next to it another got to his feet being about Ratchet's size, two lights followed his head movement so she supposed they were attached to it.

"No way…" muttered Bumblebee in disbelief as the five other figures rose from the ground, and for a moment Ashley felt her legs give in, it was like staring straight at a Jurassic park nightmare. Five dinosaur looking robots looked around still in a daze from their landing. "Primus in a rust bucket! The Dynobots!" Bumblebee exclaimed in surprise not taking his optics off their forms.

"I'm a bit shocked right now but you mind telling me if that's a bad thing or a good thing?" she asked slowly inching behind his arm, he had to lay low on the ground so they wouldn't be seen.

"That depends. Wheeljack and Ratchet created them, they have good sparks but not very sharp processors…"

"You mean their stupid?" she asked raising an eyebrow and watching as Optimus and the others approached the new arrivals.

Bumblebee didn't answer her, he was paying too much attention to what was going on. The smaller cybertronian stepped out of his space shell and went up to prime shaking hands in greeting, the twins were conveniently staying far away and both Ironhide and Ratchet had large smirks on their faces. Blurr seemed quite indifferent.

"Who's that?" she asked trying to get a better glimpse of the robot's face as he went to greet the others and prime greeted the flashing headed one.

"That would be your win" her eyes widened.

"That's Prowl?" a nod. " Oh I am so going to enjoy teasing the twins about it" she snickered.

"Shh. Try to make less noise, he had really good audio receptors, we'll get cought." She nodded trying to stifle her giggles. She then saw the second robot having a one armed hug with Ratchet, a strange sight especially because the medic was grimacing and sending an obvious threat at him.

The Dinobots were still looking around lifting and bowing their heads in wonder, she wasn't sure what to make out of them yet.

She heard a double yell of "OW"s and looked to where the twins were, Prowl had just smacked them both on the heads.

"What the slag are those knuckle heads doing?" Bee asked himself watching the dinobots who were getting more and more fidgety.

"Er…Bee…doesn't it look like their sniffing? You guys can sense smell right?" his optics widened.

"Oh slag, we're in the wind, they'll know we're here" he hurriedly went to grab her but a roar interrupted him, they heard a strong but childing sounding voice echo in the dunes.

"Me Grimlock smell funny scent!Me Grimlock DESTROOYYY!" She gulped, too frozen to move, the camaro grabbed her and tried to back away, just in time to avoid them both being crushed by a paw of the large mechanical T-rex.

"Eep!" she squeaked holding onto the yellow chest tightly knowing her doom was coming.

"Ahhh! Grimlock wait!" Bee shouted, his vocalizer hissing with effort" Its me! Bee!"

The large metallic beast halted inches from them, if Ashley stretched her arm out she'd be able to touch the tip of his nose. Air came out of his nostrils, the foul smell of machinery coming with it. He backed up standing to his full height he seemed to be evaluating the yellow form for short seconds until suddenly his optics brightened.

"Bumblebeeeee!" she let out a little screech when the t-rex jumped onto the small bot in what could pass by as a hug.

"Ah!Ah-hahaa…that's right grimlock, its me!" he said patting the head of the robot a bit in doubt " now mind getting off me? I sort of have a fragile friend with me here" he said pointing towards her.

As grimlock got off of him a voice interrupted them.

"Still as sneaky as ever I see" came a stern voice, the two looked behind grimlock's large form to see the still in protoform mech with wings followed by the remaining team.

"Slag…"

"We're in trouble" she finished for him.

"Hiya Prowl!" Bumblebee chirped putting the girl on his shoulder and getting to his feet, trying to shake off some of the sand.

"Bumblebee, I thought I assigned you to stay at the base and keep an optic on Ashley, not bring her out here to a potential danger." Prime said coming up to stand behind the scowling Prowl.

"Aw c'mon Optimus, don't beat him up, I suggested it…and he was too eager to see his friends again so he just couldn't resist" she lied calmly, keeping herself calm when lying was important, she'd learned how Ratchet could tell if she did and how to avoid it.

She felt the form she was sitting on twitch a little, and his fingers came up behind her rubbing her back in a silent thanks no one else could figure out.

The autobot leader sighed, the two of them were giving him the 'look', the one that made his spark soften, however he had to forgive them, this was after all a happy occasion.

"I suppose since you're here introductions should be accounted for." He said as Bumblebee walked forward so she could meet the others more formally. " This is autobot Prowl" Prime said putting a hand on the mech's shoulder " My second in command and master tactician." She nodded waving at the said mech with a faint smile. He nodded back.

"Hi, I'm Ashley, I'm only here temporarily"

"Fascinating" he said looking over the human with curiosity, and she gave him an equally curious stare until the second robot came in nearly pushing him out of the way, its lights on the head were so bright she had to blink away a few times to adjust.

"Hi! I'm wheeljack, it's an absolute pleasure to meet you! Your species looks absolutely intriguing!" he said in an overexcited voice.

"Er…thanks wheeljack" she said shaking his enthusiastic finger as if it were a hand.

Bumblebee then turned to the five dinosaur looking robots. " and these, are the dynobots, starting with Grimlock" the gigantic being started wagging its tail sniffing at her curiously, she couldn't help it any longer, any fear was lost once she saw his sparkling blue optics and cute expression, she started laughing and actually hugged his nose, the large dino started to purr like a little kitten!

"He's damn adorable! How come you guys never told me about him? I would have bet on him instead!" she exclaimed with glee patting the nose as she was taken to meet the remaining dynobots.

"Bet?" Prowl asked looking at Prime in question.

"It was just for a little fun Prowl, no harm done, Ashley actually bet on you" the SIC raised a metallic eyebrow in surprise.

"Who lost?"

"Er…that would have been anyone but Ratchet and Ashley." The said phrase seemed to give the CMO a gleeful smirk.

"Thank goodness something out of wheeljack came out perfect, now I can have some peace of mind at my medbay for a week!" more squeals of excitement came from the girl as the dynobots themselves were getting a little excited with the tiny human, their curiosity taking the better of them. Prowl looked at them apprehensively, the last thing he needed was the dynobots squishing one of this planet's inhabitants as soon as they got there.

"Don't worry Prowl, we'll give you a full report once we're back in the base."

"Until then it sounds like you'll have to wait though" Ironhide grunted as they watched the exaggerated adoration the girl was showing for the large beasts.

"Yes…its going to be a long night…" Ratchet said joining them along with wheeljack, it was good to see the dynobots so interested once in a while.

* * *

Okay bets aside this was fun : D I loved the dynobots and my only regret is they didn't make a movie about them yet ;_; that would have been awesome.

I didn't want the femmes to come, YET, I have something planned for them afterwards.

please review : )


	7. The first sign

First of all, sorry for the short delay, I've been having my ups and downs and wrote this along the way. Plus there are a few more fics I've been itching to write one centered on blurr and two OCs and another which is still yet to be thought better of. But I still have my sparkling fic to finish so those can wait.

* * *

As a result of their last stunt, Bumblebee had gotten his punishment in monitor duty, stuck in a room and watching screens, it was infuriating for him, but he gladly took it, especially when he found Ashley's brand new allies.

He was staring in awe at the screen watching the five dynobots run amuck the base with the tiny girl currently ridding Grimlock's head with the biggest smile he'd ever seen on her pale face.

Primus that was such a dangerous place to be sitting on. She had no where to hold onto, yet she wasn't falling somehow. That was the good news, the bad news were that they currently had Prowl and Ironhide at their tails, literally…

Prowl hung onto Grimlock's tail attempting to stop the larger robot on his tracks, with no result obviously, while Ironhide made several attempts to grab sludge failing every time because his massive cannons got in the way and he didn't want to damage them.

The poor SIC was pulled upwards with the tail and unexpectedly slipped falling behind and landing right on Ironhide's face with a resounding crash.

The girl giggled hysterically and nearly fell off had it not been for quick reflexes. Primus my spark nearly jumped out of its casing right then.

I then turned my optics to the hall they were headed for, Optimus was waiting there along with wheeljack and Ratchet who were holding a large wire net.

Apparently Wheeljack had been working on a way to reinforce the wire into a stronger metal yet still bendable, he said the purpose for this was for successful capturing of decepticons but everyone suspected it had been designed for the Dynobots, just like he was proving now.

Grimlock turned around at the end of the hall and headed straight for the trap.

"GRIMLOCK!WATCH OUT!" he tried to stop but since the other four were coming behind him they crashed and all five ended sliding right into the net with the little human holding on for dear life.

Expert hands caught the little human before any metal could crash upon her and pulled her between the wires which were wide enough for her to pass through.

She lifted her head up from the crouching position she had been in to look straight at the five dynobots piled on each others and covered by the net now being closed by the two smaller bots. Then slowly looking up she was face to face with a slightly irritated Optimus Prime.

"Hi Prime!" she said in an innocent tone. " came to join the fun?"

"**Your idea of 'fun' is a bit dangerous Ashley**" he said putting her down on the ground with care.

"Aw c'mon! They'd never hurt me willingly! They have the sweetest sparks!"

"**I have no doubts about them doing it willingly, it's unwillingly that I'm afraid of.**"

"Pft…your just a worry wuss…c'mon everything was going along just fine until you guys put that net on them!" she said pointing at the confused looking bots trying to get free. "please release them?"

"**No, they must be responsible for their actions, Prowl will assign them the deserved punishment for now.**" At this she glared up at him bawling a fist in his direction.

"Quit being a hypocrite!" Both Wheeljack and Ratchet looked at the tiny human startled and then at their prime, no one talked like that to him. " You keep talking about taking responsibility for our actions but so far you only punish them, well ya haven't done anything to me. What am I? Too weak to handle it?"

Optimus was stunned, he didn't expect this from the tiny human, he crouched down to a knee to look better into her eyes, there was defiance in there, and absolute firmness, she wasn't going to let this go until she got an answer. He let air out of his intakes as a sigh.

"**I do not give you the same treatment because you are our guest and not my soldier.**"

She looked at him suspiciously and made a sign for him to come lower, he bowed down till his chin nearly touched the ground.

"That's not the truth is it?"

"**Yes it-**" BANG, a tiny foot came and him right in the nose platting, it wasn't very strong but it was enough to make him back away from the human and rub it, it had mildly stung.

"Stop lying! You don't punish me because I'm human! Because I'm _different_ from you guys!" the way she said it had so much venom he just couldn't come up with a logical answer.

"Well until you do so I'll just keep getting victims and cause all chaos in this place! Am I clear?!" she stood there for a few seconds waiting for an answer, when she saw none was going to come she stomped off into another hall not saying any other word, everyone was stunned, even the Dynobots who were still tangled amongst each others.

Okay, maybe that hadn't been her brightest idea, but she was getting tired of special treatment, if there was one thing she hated it was just THAT. None the less that was no way to talk to the leader of a race protecting her at the moment.

"I have got to learn to be less of a hot head…" she said to herself slowly walking around the halls. "How am I going to face the government official now?" Yes she might have _missed _the last meeting but there was no running away from this one, he was due to arrive in three hours. Three! And she had been stressed, that was why she convinced the Dynobots to give her a ride around the base but ended up overdoing it.

Mindlessly heading back to the rec room she started trying to think of ways to speak to the said official that wouldn't make her seem like a freak or something. She inwardly sighed.

_Like I didn't give off that idea before…_ she mentally said to herself.

Climbing up the tall chair and over the table she went to her bag, she had run out of money a few days ago but apparently the autobots had spoken of this with the government who said they'd pay for anything she strictly needed, so she now had a few clothes more to her liking and a few supplies of food to last her for a week, whenever she'd need more she could just ask to go out and be escorted to a super market, something she felt unnecessary but they weren't going to give in after the first time.

Shuffling around the bag she took out the closest thing to appropriate she could find, a simple black t-shirt along with a pair of jeans, she didn't want to give away who she was or how she was just yet, and keeping things simple was the best way to do so.

She set them aside wondering if she should go and put them on now or later.

To make things even more stressing Bunblebee was to take her to his charge's girl friend today, the one she had borrowed clothes from, and she was so not looking forward to that, however she couldn't just say that in the cheerful bot's face, the poor thing was dying to get outside and the excuse of having Mikaela show her around town was the best excuse.

So now her nerves were pilling up, she was to meet two strangers today, neither of them sounded that pleasant to begin with AND she had yelled in Optimus's face, not to mention getting the Dynobots in trouble.

"Maybe…maybe I was a little too rough on the big guy…" she said to herself lining the wrinkles in her clothes to smooth out the tissue. "I'm not part of them anyway...its not like I'm staying here for ever…" she let out an air she didn't knew was holding in. The depressive thought clung to her heart like a scared animal who didn't want to fall.

She took the clothes and decided she should put them on, just for the sakes of her nerves. Quickly leaving the rec room she went for the human bathrooms, which wasn't very far and changed clothes. Once done she returned her other clothes to their place and looked around helplessly, it was silent.

"Great…now what do I do?" she asked to the empty room plopping back onto her sleeping bag.

"**You could start by helping me prepare for the government**" a calm and stoic voice answered her from behind, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Turning back she came face to face with Prowl, who had yet to choose an alt form.

"How the hell did you sneak up on me?! Your feet are supposed to make a lot of noise! or at least vibration!" she shouted trying to calm her beating heart.

"**I'm not called Prowl for nothing.**" He said raising an optic ridge " **I apologize for frightening you, it was not my intention.**" He leaned down to be more to her eye level.

"So…what were you saying again? Something about preparing?" he nodded.

"**I have yet to understand what you humans call appropriate for such meetings and how to prepare for such things.**"

"Righhttt…so you came to me. No offence but I'm not exactly the best person to advise you, I'm just a kid, I haven't met anyone from the government before…" she shrugged. "Guess I could give you a few basic human pointers though…" He nodded holding up a palm, she hesitated for a while, so far she hadn't talked much to this mech and didn't really know him that well, but according to the stories of sunny and sides this was just the way he was, quiet.

Hopping onto the offered hand she was taken out to what she knew as Optimus's office, which had an absurdly enormous table. Right in the middle was a smaller version of a table and a few metallic chairs to go along with it, right in front of the leader's seat.

"Okay…" Prowl had stopped at the entrance waiting for her to say something "let's see…first things first: How many people and who is coming?"

Prowl's optics brightened for a second and she took that as a sign that he was accessing the information.

"**Three officers, senator Kelly from the-**" she raised a hand to cut him off.

"You know what? Don't tell me what they do…that'll just freak me out…they are all men right?" she asked climbing down his shoulder and hopping onto the table much to his distress as he didn't want her to fall off.

"**Two are of the male species and one is a female. A scientist.**" She groaned

"I told you not to tell me what they do! Urgh why the hell are they bringing a scientist here?" she asked adjusting the table and the stares to a spot where they wouldn't have to crane their necks higher to stare up at optimus.

"**It seems your people believe we might have passed some sort of radiation onto you, or better yet our enemy faction, they are bringing the scientist to make sure nothing is wrong with you**" she snorted at that.

"Bet Ratchet isn't too happy about that." Prowl looked away as if a bit disturbed with the thought.

"**He…had to get a few moments to gather his calm**" she let out a small chuckle.

"So…I guess since you already let the cat out might as well tell me who the third person is." The robot stood there motionless for a while watching her arranging things with a thoughtful stare.

"**Ex- sector seven agent officer Simmons.**" She gave him a short nod, she didn't know who that guy was or what the hell that sector did, but she'd know soon enough. Something inside her though told her it wasn't good news.

"Right, I'm going to get a few cups of water so stay here, make sure NO ONE touches those!" she said pointing at the table and chairs " I swear if I have to re-arrange them it'll be the end of you guys!" quickly going to the edge she held onto the table's leg and slid down like a fireman much to the mech's agitation and ran off shouting "I'll be right back!".

True to her word the small human came back carefully holding three glasses full of water and made a motion for her to pull her up.

"**I do not see the need for you to bring these water containers. What is their purpose?**"

"Er….well that's kind of complicated, as far as I know in meetings humans always have these for each person, I think they get their mouths dry after long hours of talking. But if your asking in a more biological term then I should let you know most of our bodies are made of water so we frequently need to drink it to keep our own systems working correctly."

"**Fascinating**" he said in a genuine tone. She put down the three glasses each in its place and turned back to him.

"Well that's it. Anything else you need me to do?" He stood there, staring back down at her with that awfully disturbing thoughtful look. Immediately she knew what this was about and let out a big sigh. "You're here because of what I said to Prime earlier aren't you?"

"**For a human you catch on quickly…**" he said not sounding that amazed.

I'm not sure I should take that as an insult or a compliment." Pulling out a chair she sat down on it resting her arms on its back and staring at the tall machine. "Spill it then."

"**I beg your pardon?**" he asked confused.

"It's a way of telling you to just get on with it, I know what I did and I know it was wrong, so I'm just waiting for you to preach."

"**You sound like you don't really need one.**" She dug her head in her arms groaning.

"I know…my consciousness won't let me go…but its just that…"she paused, prowl turned up his audios to make sure she wasn't saying anything in a low tone but it simply seemed she was at a loss of words.

"I can't say I'm sorry when I feel that what I said was right anyway…though I could have said it in better terms of course…" she heard the sound of a gigantic chair moving and looked up to see prowl sitting in front of her considering what she was saying.

"You have to agree he has been unfair in this point of view."

"**And you have to agree that it is also not his place to punish you Ashley, not to mention we're not used to punishing creatures like yourself.**" She cringed at the word.

"Don't call me that."

"**Do you not like to be called by your full name?**" his optic ridge raised.

"No not that, don't call me a creature." The way she spoke it had a lot of restraint in it, Prowl could detect a lot of anger and pain being held back and his sensors were indicating her stress levels had increased slightly.

"**I apologize; it was not my intention to offend you.**"

"It's not really an offence…it's just something I've been called before as a bad thing. It…gives me bad memories…" she looked to the side not really moving her head, it was an uncomfortable subject. There was a long pause until she decided to speak again.

"How long do you think I should be staying here?"

"**That would depend on what your people decide, if it were up to us you would stay a lot longer, after all we were hoping you could indeed fix the allspark.**" She looked up at him, studying his features, his optics were a bit dimmer, his shoulders sagged slightly and his doorwings had completely gone down, either he was tired or sad, or maybe both?

"You hear about that huh?" he nodded.

"**As Second in Comand I always have to know such things.**"

"See, I don't even know if I can do that! One thing is deciphering Ratchet's scribbles the other is decoding your god! They are completely different!" He didn't say anything and she just gripped her hair out of frustration. "But Ratchet got so excited with the idea that he just had to tell Optimus and now he is also counting on that and I just…argh!"

"**You are not used to others counting on you**" he stated as a matter of fact.

"No…" she admitted in a slight whimper" that's putting it mildly actually…everyone always reacts like I'm going to destroy something…I have like this bad luck black kitten always following me around…" the SIC surveyed the area briefly but didn't see the said creature so he assumed it was another strange human expression.

"**Have you tried to do it yet?**"

"Well…no…not really, I did go there to look at the codes but…I was just looking at them, nothing to try and solve it…"

"**Then how do you know you will fail if you haven't yet tried?**" she didn't answer. Just a tiny nod his hand came over to the chair and she stared at it questioningly. "**I'll take you there a bit, we still have some time, and I have been intending to pay a visit there anyway**" the way he said it sounded almost as if he choked on his own words.

Climbing on they headed out of the office and as they neared the location Prowl seemed to slow down until he stopped at the door staring at it as if evaluating an enemy he knew he couldn't face.

"Prowl?" he didn't answer, it was then that she remembered what Bumblebee had told her the night they got there, Jazz had been his bonded. And that same Jazz was inside that room, dead. " Its okay if your not ready to go in yet, just put me down and I'll go ahead." He seemed to snap out of his thoughts and shook his head.

"**No…I really should…for old time's sake**" he opened the door and went in, not hesitating one single step until the two stood in front of the silver form motionless in its spot. He gently put her down and stayed there, staring at his bonded with a look she most definitely could not identify. Not that she wanted to anyway, she went over to the allspark's cabinet, it was a bit high up and as usual it didn't glow while someone else was in the room. Every inch of the object looked like it could slide into another place; the very symbols were pathways for it to shift. It was one very complicated jigsaw puzzle, and according to them it was just a tiny piece of it too!

For the longest time she tried to concentrate on memorizing its symbols and comprehending it, but she would often steal a glance at Prowl who stood in the very same place and position staring at Jazz, it was a sad sight to see. Finally she thought it had taken enough time and went back to him, though when she got near she noticed his optics were off. "huh? Prowl? You there?" she tapped his foot with a bit of strength because these things usually didn't even feel her tapping. Then to her surprise she heard a threatening whining sound of metal. "Oh shit!" she ran to hide on the other side of the memorial as Prowl's Body crashed backwards completely motionless. "Prowl!" After making sure he wouldn't suddenly jolt live she ran over to his head and banged a fist on it but got no reaction. "What is this?! Can robots pass out? Urgh!" she pushed his head so he would be facing the ceiling and searched around his audio for the right connection." where is it?!ah here it is!"

* * *

Over at the medbay Ratchet was enjoying his free time cleaning his tools and not having to put up with the twins or wheeljack when his com link turned on, it was prowl, or it was supposed to be until he heard Ashley's hurried and panicky voice.

"**Primus child calm down! I can't understand a word your saying! Your worst than blurr. And why are you communicating through Prowl's com link?**"

"His out! He just… went off when we came to see jazz! I can't get him to wake up! I think he's dead!" her voice had gone incredibly squeaky in her panic much to the cmo's irritation.

"**Slag it, hold on, I'll be right there**"

No sooner had he said that Ash could hear his footsteps from the hall, her heart was racing, Prowl wouldn't move despite her fervent attempts. She didn't even notice the allspark had begun to glow once more, until the said medic barged right in and without hesitation was on the fallen comrade shooing her away. She stood back watching him work with worry.

Within instants Ratchet was retracting helmet platting and putting it back, checking every wire or circuitry that might have possibly fried.

Nothing seemed to be wrong, so he could only get to one conclusion "**slag it he short circuited…**"

"He what?"

"**In human terms I suppose you could say it is like fainting.**" He glanced at the human and noticed her whole frame was shaking violently and her eyes were leaking like rivers, her skin had gone reddish and she was sniffling from time to time. Going into a more complete scan he could tell she was a complete wreck. " **He'll be all right. What were you two doing here anyway?**" that seemed to snap her out of the terrified gaze she was giving prowl.

"He wanted to bring me to the allspark so I could study it a bit, but he hesitated so I told him it was okay not to go b-but he insisted" her voice was squeaky and it really just unnerved her more. "he seemed fine and all for a while when I noticed his optics were off, I sort of touched his leg and he just fell…god I thought I killed him!" she buried her face in her hands sobbing uncontrollably.

"**Now how on cybertron would you do _that?_**" he questioned trying to bring her to reason.

"I-I.."she was hiccupping so much she couldn't even speak. He had to take away his attention from prowl to try and calm her down.

"**Breathe child, no one got hurt and everything will be okay.**" He tried to say as gently as he could, which was quite a feat.

"I t-thought I k-killed him" she repeated " b-because bad s-stuff always happens ar-round me" as soon as she finished saying it all hell broke loose, she kept crying and just couldn't seem to stop no matter how much Ratchet tried.

Eventually he had to call someone, and he cursed for ever actually having to call those two.

"**Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, come in"**

"**Sunstreaker here, what's the problem Ratch'?"** The CMO made a huge effort not to scold him for calling him that.

"**Prowl just short circuited and I have a sobbing human in hysterics here, I need you to come get her while I take Prowl to the med bay."**

"**Sure, where are you guys?" **Sideswipe's voice asked.

"**The memorial room" **There was a pause.

"**What were they doing in there?"**Sunstreaker asked, Ratchet could hear them moving through the com link.

"**I'll explain later, now get your afts in here!"**

Sure enough the twin's loud steps arrived just minutes later, by the looks of them they had been outside because some of the sand was still on their armour along with some dirt. Still this was the best choice he had at the moment, he wasn't going to call optimus to help, not after the last incident, Bumblebee was still attending monitor duty and both Ironhide and Blurr had left for patrol, they still had wheeljack of course but he'd be slagged before he left the human alone with him.

Actually he was surprised to find the two immediately coaxing the little human into coming onto one of their palms, she down right refused but they kept insisting giving ratchet the go ahead to leave.

* * *

**Sideswipe's and Sunstreaker's POV**

When Ratchet had contacted us we had no idea how bad it actually was, first we thought she had simply gotten startled, everyone did when they first saw Prowl glitch out.

This however was on a completely different level, not even when we were recovering from the battle with barricade had she freaked out this much.

The little organic had managed to needle her way in between jazz's memorial stone and the pod he rested in, where we couldn't reach her, she kept sobbing and muttering things neither of us understood. Sunstreaker took the job to try and find a possible language she was speaking in to translate it while Sideswipe kept trying to convince her out.

She shook her head persistent to hide away in there and shoved her head into her knees crying her heart out.

"**Aw c'mon Ashy! Prowl's glitched far more times than this! It never hurt him to bad, in fact I think it only made him better.**" Sideswipe tried to tell her, but she just kept on doing the same thing, he sighed and looked at his twin in search of any ideas.

His brother had a concentrated look, one that told sideswipe he was still searching the internet, then realization came into his optics and he frowned.

"**what?**"

"**She's speaking in a dead language**"

"**huh?**"

"**Its called Latin, apparently one of the oldest languages of the humans.**" Sideswipe quickly did his own search and gathered sufficient files to translate what she had been saying.

"**a monster to come a monster to tame, lives to be gone lives to be drunk? **" he translated out loud " **what the pit does that mean?**"

"**Why are you asking me?**" His brother said irritated leaning down to look at the shaking girl from the other side of her hiding place. "**Come on girl, you have your meeting in…" **he checked his internal chronometer "**slag it, 15 minutes! You have to come out!"**

"**Yeah, you can't miss the guy a second time! Come on, Prowl is going to fritz if he wakes up to know you missed it because of him."**

There was silence, then a few sniffles and a small trembling voice.

" H-he would?" a double sigh of relief came from their vents.

"**Yes! You have no idea how much he panics about these things."**

"If-f I come out and attend the m-meeting will he not…not…" she was struggling with the words.

Seeing their chance to get her out they didn't even hesitate.

"**Yes! He'll be very happy if you finally get this over with.**" Very slowly the small human got to her feet and timidly peeked out from behind the memorial stone.

She did not want to get onto the offered hand but if it would stop prowl from passing out then she'd gladly do it.

"**Good**" Sideswipe said once she sat in his hand and he lifted himself up. "**now mind telling us what happened?**"

She slowly told them the story while they made their way out of there, the clock was ticking and she still looked down right terrible with her eyes suddenly puffy red, worse of all she wasn't calming down, she simply had stopped crying. The twins exchanged looks only they could know of once she finished explaining.

"**Look, I didn't get where you think this was your fault but let me tell you, its not." **Sideswipe said since his brother wasn't exactly the most tactful mech when it came to these things.** "This happens a lot with Prowl, and its going to keep happening, so don't you worry that little processor of yours anymore"**

"Brain" she corrected him, her low whimpers had finally quieted down, now she simply looked like someone who was incredibly tired. "Do I really have to meet the official?"

"**yes!"**both said at the same time.

"**Don't take this the wrong way Ash, but you have to go back to your kind, this isn't a place for a human"** Sunstreaker said, his brother elbowed him giving him a glare as if he was saying _"that was so uncalled for right now"_

The 14 year old sighed though as she was put down on the ground again in front of the door.

"I suppose your right…I do have to go sometime right?" she was staring away over her shoulder to the end of the hall with a ghost of a smile, it felt eerie and neither was quite sure if it was a smile of happiness.

"**Its for the best"** The red lambo agreed sourly, he had gotten fond of the little human and it saddened him to know she would leave soon.

She turned to the door nodding slightly, her smile completely gone now, if either knew about it, they would think she was a ghost, she had the most corpse like expression, like one who had been shot and its body frozen in time, yet she moved to the door and entered not saying any other word.

She knew that soon she would have to leave, soon she would be that empty soul again, it was just a matter of days.

* * *

Good? Bad? I get few reviews so I really don't know your thoughts on this….I'm more and more reverting back to this character so its been a bit easier to write her as I progressively remember what it was like to be that person years ago.

Anyway, I'll possibly update in a few days, give it two weeks maybe, maybe less.


	8. Forguiveness

New chappie enjoy :D

* * *

The meeting was….in a few very well put words: a waste of time.

She wasn't comfortable with Prime talking for her and Ironhide had to replace Prowl.

On top of that she had the three new guests, Senator Kelly wasn't all too bad, he was a bit understanding but kept pointing out very important problems like the assurance that I wouldn't talk about the autobots.

The second was the scientist, madam Rose, a very very thin woman, all skin and bone and with an abnormally large nose that made her look like a pecking bird, she kept noting things down on a paper whenever I made even a single movement and that was unnerving me, she wouldn't take her eyes off me, not even to write the said words.

The third was agent Simmons, my initial hunch about him was right to its core, I hated the guy the moment I laid eyes on him, he made many remarks to whatever Ironhide and Prime would say from time to time, and I swear even the old weapon specialist was making a huge effort not to blast the human to dust.

Simmons out of the three seemed not to want me to go even before he met me, and kept saying things such as a child not being trustworthy and that putting me to study the allspark was a waste of time, he seemed to be quite resentful for something and by the way Optimus was staring at him I could tell this hadn't been their first meeting or argument.

All in all we got no final decision; I was to stay with the autobots for the time being. If I could prove that I could decipher the allspark I would have to stay longer to help these guys out, but if I didn't I would be sent home straight away.

As the conversation went on, mostly on formalities, I let my mind slip away into wonder. Was it really worth staying? If it was just for a few more weeks?

But then again, what did I have back at home? A mother? A father? Two people who didn't do anything to stop their daughter from the fate she had?

To go back to a life where no one spoke to her unless it was to curse her existence? Where she couldn't find a chance to have friends?

My fists tightened, I bit my bottom lip to keep back the tears threatening to fall again, I still felt horrible for what I did to Prowl but all this thinking was just making it worse.

I was suddenly jerked back to reality when a large metallic finger touched my shoulder gently, I looked up at Prime, I couldn't help but give him a sad look, I felt responsible for what I said to him, I really had no right to stay at this base.

"**I believe miss Rose just asked your permission to run a few tests on you.**" He said gesturing to the suspicious woman. A frown came to my face, I didn't like her at all, she had a snobbish attitude and kept checking if there was even a speck of dust on the table, plus she hadn't drank from her water at all unlike the other two, almost as if she was afraid of germs. I did NOT want to go with this woman, much less let her run tests on my body.

"I'm sorry Prime could we leave that for a little later? I'm not really feeling up to it right now…" if he was disappointed, he bloody hell didn't show it, actually he had been giving worried glances between the two of us and Ironhide, almost as if questioning his old friend if he saw the same apprehension he did.

"**Yes of course. We'll leave that for tomorrow morning. Your dismissed"** I stared at him questioningly for a while, then glancing at the three humans, with a short nod I made my way to the end of the table where Ironhide put me down on the ground and I left. Honestly I was glad to be out of there. The twins were still outside waiting for me though. Sideswipe crouched down on one knee to offer a hand but I shook my head gently giving him a ghost of a smile.

"I think I'll be going on my own feet thanks…I'll see you guys later…" I didn't want to wait for their answers or questions; I just turned away with a slight wave of the hand as a goodbye and turned to the other hall.

I made a short stop by my "room" and exchanged clothes to a pair of beige shorts the sort of thing you wear when you go hiking or mountain climbing but kept the black t-shirt, I didn't want to dirty too much laundry.

I then headed out, I needed some air, and there was only one place on the base where I was allowed some.

I headed for the second level of the base, this one kept the human size to it but it was a complete mess, the base had once been a military hangar, but the autobots could only use the lower level which they had remodelled quite well for themselves, this level however still kept the dusty offices with broken and abandoned machinery, she came here whenever she needed a moment alone and one day when exploring found out a way to the roof of the base, they were out in the middle of no where, a large forest was the perfect cover for the abandoned place and it had a small dirt road which was their only way back to civilization. It had however the greatest view for the sunset and sunrise.

She heard the now familiar metallic sound of an autobot and turned to see a yellow hand take hold of the roof, followed by its respectful body as the bot climbed onto the roof and carefully walked over making sure it was safe with his weight.

"Hey bee" I said as he came over and sat down next to me, his larger legs dangling off the building.

"**What were you doing way up here Ashley?**" I shrugged.

"I felt like being here…is that a bad thing?"

"**No…not at all.**" He turned to look at the sunset and we stayed that way, silent, at least for a while.

"What are you doing here though?" He seemed surprised by the question but didn't look my way, his optics dimmed.

" **I used to do this a lot before…with a friend of myne.**" I took notice on the "before" word and didn't question him about it.

"You can come with me and watch it more often if you want" I said trying not to sound too hopeful. I was going away after all…but I just didn't want to pass a chance to know these bots more. They were probably the only friends I'd ever get.

Bumblebee averted his gaze to look down at me, missing the last rays of the sunset, a smile spread on his faceplates.

"**I'd like that**" I smiled back at his answer.

"Now, I believe we just missed our last rays of sunshine so we better get back in." He nodded holding up a hand and I grinned. "I like to do things myself thanks, besides I'll get stiff if you guys keep cradling me like a baby. C'mon!" I hurried to the edge of the building and heard him stand up startled thinking I was about to jump off, which I actually did so he had his rightful reasons to panic.

His face came over with a horrified expression as he looked down thinking he'd see my splattered form on the ground bellow, only he didn't find it, there was no one on the ground.

"**Ashley?!**" he called uncertain, searching avidly. I giggled not able to hold it in and he looked closer to his hands, where the rain pipes were and I was holding onto them.

"You should have seen your face!" I giggled now full blast, he let out air from his vents as a relieved sigh.

"**You young lady, scared the spark right out of its chamber! Don't ever do that again!"** He said a bit mad, but he wasn't really angry I could tell he didn't mean any malice by his tone.

" You gotta admit I had you there" I gently climbed down the pipe as he scaled down the way he came from, he was surprisingly good at it, no marks were left on the walls and he barely made any sound for someone so big and made of metal. I jumped off onto his shoulder once 'near' the ground. "Hey bee, can I ask you something?" He nodded walking over to the base's entrance. "Where did you learn to be a spy? Your really good at it."

"**Huh? How did you know I was a spy?"** He asked bewildered, the autobots still hadn't fully told her what they did in this war, well except prime and a few obvious exceptions like Ratchet and Prowl.

" Well…for starters your all sneaky like" he raised an optic ridge at that and she shrugged. "Your incredibly silent despite being made of metal, and many times you look around before entering a room. Meaning your searching for any possible threat that could give out your position."

"**And your surprisingly observant, are you sure you're a regular human?**" he joked, to which I giggled chuckled lightly.

"Its just that I had to learn to sneak my way around so I identify myself easily with your reactions. Though in a war that would most likely make you a spy right?"

"**Or a scout**" he corrected.

"Oh…right, so…you're a scout then?"

"**Actually I'm officially both. Whichever needs to be done. Jazz was the one to do the more serious spy stuff though**"

"Oh? Why was that?"

"**Well firstly because he was even smaller than I was, although just a little bit, secondly because he was also a saboteur and head of the special Ops Squad.**" I whistled impressed.

"He must have been one hell of a mech…" the young bot grinned, he was heading for the rec room.

"**That he was…Now. I believe this is your stop"** He said putting me down gently.

"Yeah, thanks for the ride Bee. Oh and if you see the twins and they are still worried tell them I'm fine okay?" He nodded heading off to his quarters.

I waited patiently until I could no longer hear his footsteps and made a dash. Turning around each path now memorized perfectly I headed to the one room I had any busyness with.

I stood at the entrance of the memorial room, staring up at the silver body reflecting he shard's faint blue glow.

"Hey Jazz…" I hurried over to the cabinet and opened it, it had to be done quickly, I couldn't let the autobots know what I was doing. Heck I wasn't even sure what I was doing. I just knew I had to try.

I turned to the human control panel on the side that required a password, after all it had been the humans who insisted the autobots made a safe place which both species could acess.

"Hmm…lets see if I can crack your code" I sad starting to try out various combinations.

It needed four letters, so my possibilities were vast.

I stood there trying different possibilities for a while but was getting no success. The glow brightened a bit for a while and I noticed the reflection on Jazz's body had increased a bit, giving him an almost alive look, it was as if the shard wanted to give him life again.

"I know… I know…Just hold on a bit Jazz…" I said to myself turning back to the panel, then it hit me. I stared wide eyed between the empty silver shell and the control in front of me." Jazz…" in a quick rush of realization I slammed in the letters, the green light lit and the door opened with a hiss. The shard lowering down to the human level.

Hesitantly I stepped inside and looked at it, this was the closest I've been to it, I could carefully see any fissure it had, any mark and detail that could escape me before. It glew brighter as if it knew. I slowly reached up to touch it when the hiss of the door awoke me from my trance. I looked back like a deer staring at the headlights of a car. Or rather, a transformed semi truck.

"**Ashley**!" he shouted in a startled tone hurrying over, pulling me back out and closing the cabinet. "**What do you think your doing?! That's dangerous!"**

"I was only trying to see better!" I protested trying to get past his gigantic hand but he kept blocking my path, he looked down at me with a stern expression I had never had the experience to face, I felt ashamed somehow.

"**You were going to touch it weren't you?"** I looked away, shuffling with my feet, my silence was enough answer. He sighed rubbing the bridge of his nose plating with his free hand.

"**You can't touch it. Is that clear?"** I pouted, if I couldn't touch it then how was I supposed to study it? "**Ashley listen, it nothing personal. The last human to touch it had to endure severe consequences; he is still threatened by the decepticons to this very day."** He explained, I suddenly felt a pang of jealousy, I knew exactly who he was talking about. He relaxed visibly at this point though and put away his hand.

**"What were you doing in here anyway? I thought you had gone to recharge by now."** How could he speak so normally to me? I had insulted, shouted, and disrespected him, yet he behaved as if nothing had happened.

"I… I just wanted to get a better look at it…I haven't really been able to get a good look yet and it's hard to study it since its usually so high up." Well it was half true, the other part was that after Bumblebee's reference to Jazz I really wanted to bring the mech back.

**"How did you even crack the code? Primus only I know of it and the secretary of defense."** I pointed guiltily at Jazz.

"It was kind of obvious…" I admitted.

**"Ashley I need you to give me your word that you will never do something rash like that again**" I looked up at the shard; I didn't want to make this promise. "**Your word Ashley**" he insisted and I winced nodding ever so lightly. He relaxed visibly.

"But how am I supposed to help you guys if I can't see it properly?!" I demanded balling my fists at my sides. A faint smile reached him; I was confused at first until I was picked up from the ground and held in his hand. I glared up at him questioningly then turned to the side to see the faint blue glow right next to me, only on the other side of the glass. I leaned forward in fascination; it was the first time I saw it glow while an active autobot was inside. Maybe it knew, maybe it was anxious, maybe it knew Prime would understand. I made myself comfortable in his hand as he stared at the artefact with an encrypted expression.

"Thanks…" I muttered after a while trying to memorize the symbols and figure out what they meant and what they were for.

"**I should be the one thanking you. You are doing this for us, yet you won't gain anything from it."** I shrugged.

"I wouldn't say that…" I felt his questioning gaze weight on me. "I get to stay with you guys. That's a lot more than you can ever imagine." He turned back to the allspark. Eyeing it in wonder. "I'm sorry by the way....for the way I behaved."

"**Its allright** " he said with in a comforting voice."

* * *

**"It WHAT?!"** Ratchet's unamused voice all but rang in his helm.

"**It reacted to Ashley's presence, it had never reacted to any of us before."** Prime repeated. " **I stayed with her there for most of the night, it didn't stop until we left, when I came back from the rec room it was no longer glowing."**

"**Are you suggesting the Allspark knows Ashley can fix it?**" Prowl questioned with a sceptic look. It was highly unlikely that a mere human could do such a thing, but she _did _crack Ratchet's personal notes, and that was something even most cybertronians couldn't do. Medics and scientists were always a pain when it came to notes, it was always because they were afraid someone could use them to their advantage and harm others like the decepticons.

"**It's a possibility, we know as much about it as the humans do."**

"**Which means nothing at all, we don't know what we're meddlin' with here Prime, if this turns out the wrong way…"** Ironhide trailed off, his processor probably imagining all the insane possibilities.

**"Ashley gave me her word that she wouldn't touch the Allspark"** Prime told him in a stern tone, thing about Prime he always trusted everyone to their word, which many times had led to betrayals and stabs in the back. But it was just his nature.

"**Still it couldn't harm to keep an optic on her."** Wheeljack suggested. "**I'd be glad to have her over by the lab whenever she needs to study cybertronian coding. I'm rather interested in how she manages to process all of it."** Ratchet snorted.

"**As long as you don't blow her up"**

**"I will suggest your offer to her Wheeljack, however no experimenting while she is in your lab. This is just like when you tried to teach the younglings."** Optimus warned. " **In the meantime on other occasions I think we can change guard shifts between the twins and Blurr since Bumblebee is to pick up Sam tomorrow.**"

"**Speaking of which where is he?"** Sunstreaker grumbled irritated as usual, the little yellow Camaro hadn't come to their meeting.

**"He's waiting with her in my med bay, I have to supervise the scientist testing her, but I didn't trust her to stay with the kid alone so I left him on guard."** Ratchet grouched.

Bumblebee watched the two humans with mild interest. The woman known as Doctor Rose was questioning young Ashley who was all but compliant to give useful answers. She either replied sarcastically or rudely. None of the two were satisfying the information hungry doctor.

"So, I have to ask, how did the cybertronians affect your ideology and morals so far? Has anything changed at all? Any new views on the world and universe?" Ashley raised an eyebrow at her.

"Who said I had any morals in the first place? No they haven't changed any of those, I'm the type of person that doesn't change if someone tries to force her to. I only change morals if I think they are right or that I adapt to them."

"And none of this changed?" the woman asked. Ashley grit her teeth out of exasperation and gave Bumblebee a pleading look, he however only smiled and kept waiting for Ratchet to come back, secretly he was wondering how much longer Ashley was going to hold back, the woman had already asked some very disturbing questions about the young female's personal hygiene and feminine subjects, to which the girl's stress levels had increased out of embarrassment.

"Lady, I told you before, NOTHING in me changed ever since I tagged along with them. They are almost as safe as humans! If not safer sometimes." She declared, giving the yellow bot a sense of pride in himself. To say something like that meant they were doing a very good job. Doctor Rose however quirked and eyebrow, a smirk forming on her lips as if she had just caught what she was looking for.

"Almost?" Ashley stared at the woman frigidly; she knew where she was getting at.

"Well you have to admit their size can be dangerous and accidents do happen, its like trying no to step on a kitten in the middle of a crowd. Things just happen."

"Has this happened to you?" she asked noting down her result with glee.

"No! Of course not, do I look like I was stepped on or something?!"

"I suppose not" the woman said not looking up at the girl. The said girl had it, she stood up and pushed down the notepad the woman was writing on to stare at her square glasses with a vicious glare. "Look lady, I don't like the way your making this sound, and if you so much as accuse them of-" just then the door hissed open and Ratchet entered, everyone froze up staring at him, he stood there his optics changing from the young spy to the two humans.

"**Am I…missing something?"**

"Ah, doctor Ratchet I believe? You came just on time, we're done with the interview Doctor Rose said standing up and ignoring Ashley's deadly glare.

The old medic nodded slightly. **"You can go now Bumblebee, I think the twins were looking for you."** The yellow bot nodded and turned to the young human.

"**Cya Ashley! Don't forget we owe Mikaela a visit!"** he said dashing out of the room.

Ashley groaned at that, they had both forgotten about that the day before and were going there today to make it up for the poor girl who waited for two hours.

She was still sleepy though, having stayed almost all night sitting on Prime's hand and studying the Allspark until she fell asleep.

Ratchet sat down in his rusty old chair watching the two humans as the doctor started to examine her more clinically now, mainly checking the eye colour, ears, heart rate etc… Ratchet was intrigued by the procedures never before having used any of the objects to analyse something. It was simply fascinating how humans evolved to try and fix themselves.

Doctor rose suddenly took out a syringe from her medical kit and the girl visibly flinched away, his scanners showed her distress had increased considerably.

"**What are you doing with that?"** the doctor stopped in her advance, much to Ashley's relief.

"I need a blood sample to analyse her. It's just a little sting I assure you." The woman said with a feign smile. Ratchet didn't like it but nodded for her to carry on much to the young one's regret.

"I don't think that's necessary" she said a bit too quick due to her fear.

"Don't be silly now, if you can survive from being stepped on you can certainly survive from a little sting." The look on the woman's face was telling Ashley something else though, Ratchet was behind her so he couldn't see it. It was the type of look that said 'say-anything-and-I-will-make-them-take-you-away'. She replaced the syringe quickly with another from the inside of her jacket. Ashley paled but didn't dare look at Ratchet lest he saw her pleading expression. It was a double needle; one side of the vial had a silvery fluid while the other was empty. The woman got closer; making sure her own body was covering the needle from the medic's view behind her.

Ashley hissed looking away, she never really liked needles, not that she was afraid of them, she just didn't like the feeling of her blood rushing to her head when she knew something was coming into her body.

The liquid the woman infused stung only lightly for a few seconds and then disappeared.

She backed and quickly put the syringe back in her jacket taking out a band aid and finishing the job. She then took out a third syringe already with blood in it, someone else's of course and turned to Ratchet. "There, that should be all, now if you don't mind I just have one more feminine matter to speak with young Ashley before I leave" He didn't move, staring at the woman impatiently. So far he hadn't seen her do anything wrong. Ashley was looking at her forearm disgusted at the spot the band aid was at.

Seeing the medic wasn't leaving the human made a fake coughing sound but he didn't get it.

"Ratchet she means she wants a few minutes alone with me." Ashley explained looking up at his old optics, he stared at her for a while, his expression one of clear distrust, but then again he was always like that. "Its okay, its probably just women stuff." She said with a small shrug.

He grouched something in cybertronian and reluctantly left his own med bay. Doctor Rose stared at his leave for a while.

"Grouchy one isn't he?" Ashley didn't answer her, she was glaring daggers at her head when the woman turned around with an eery smile. "You did very well lying like that, where did you learn? Stole your parent's money often? Snitched the teacher's wallet?" she asked walking over.

"What did you put inside me?" Ashley demanded ignoring completely the woman's remarks.

"That's for me to know and you to never find out." She said patting the girl's head, to which she growled and took hold of in a vice grip, making the woman flinch at the strength used.

"I'll make this very clear lady, I don't like you, they don't like you, and if you did anything-"

"No I'm making this very clear." The woman interrupted. " If you so much as word a thing about what I did I will report to the secretary of defence that these alien creatures are far too dangerous and you'll be taken to our headquarters for proper 'care'" the way she had worded it gave the young girl the goose bumps, she wasn't kidding.

"I don't care what happens to me, but if you dare to-"

"Hurt your friends? Oh that all depends on you Ashley" she said calmly. They exchanged a glare before Rose yanked her arm free and went to gather her medical kit. "I'll be coming back next week to check on the results. If you do anything suspicious, anything at all, we can blame your death on them. And you know what happens afterwards." She glared as the woman left. The room felt awfully cold and large, even larger than it was supposed to be.

Ratchet came back in shortly after immediately noting the human's depression.

"**Is something wrong?"** He asked lowering himself to her level.

"N-no…its nothing… I just remembered something." She lied getting to her feet and adjusting the wrinkles in her clothes. " Anyway I should be going now, thanks for supervising though, I felt more at ease" the young human then hurried off leaving Ratchet to wonder, his scanners on her until the doors hissed closed and she was out of sight.

The ride to Mikaela's garage was short, it was just outside of tranquillity and honestly the girl wasn't feeling up to this.

Bumblebee pulled up into the surprisingly empty garage, there were materials of all sorts inside and a young woman was standing there waiting for the camaro to stop in front of her, cleaning her greasy hands into a dirty rag. She was everything Ashley had imagined when she had first borrowed her clothes. Young, insanely beautiful, tan skin, nice hair, well…you get the picture.

She climbed out of the camaro and his form shifted as he started to transform.

The garage was big enough for him to stand and since there were no workers in there it was okay for him to reveal himself.

Mikaela smiled and patted his leg once he was done.

"Good to see you Bee. How's it going?" The scout lowered himself to sit on the ground.

"**Not the same without you and Sam around to make out on my hood"** he joked, and mikaela blushed intensely.

"Your never going to let that go are you?"

"**Nope"** he chirped. Then he turned to me pushing me forwards in encouragement. "**This is Ashley, the girl I told you about, Ashley, this is Mikaela."** He introduced. Both girls nodded, Mikaela offering a hand and noting how the younger one didn't mind getting her hands dirty by shaking it, she already liked her for that.

"Hi" both said to each other in an awkward moment.

"So… your going to pick up Sam tomorrow?" He nodded excited playing a music Ashley didn't know to enhance his meaning and snapping his fingers with the beat. Mikaela snorted.

"Not that song again bee…" she then turned over to Ashley "How do you put up with him?" she joked making the young bot whine in a pathetic way on purpose.

"Awww...he's not that bad, he has good taste in music."

**"HA!"** Bumblebee cheered raising a finger for her to high five, which she did reluctantly.

"He can however be a bit childish sometimes, nothing compared to the twins though"

"The twins? Oh yeah you mentioned them" she said turning to the camaro. "I haven't had the chance to meet them yet." She snorted.

"Trust me as soon as you become their target you'll wish you never did."

"What? Are they like Ironhide?"

**"Nah…he'd be happy if they were"** Bumblebee said getting a curious look from both females.** "Instead he's almost as afraid of them as Ratchet"**

"Ratchet is afraid of someone? Now that's news." Mikaela said with a smirk.

Ashley sat down against Bumblebee's knee trusting him not to hurt her if he had to get up.

"Their devils, masters of torture I tell you. Sideswipe especially, Sunstreaker is more on the psycho side…" The older girl raised an eyebrow at her.

"Hold on, I'm just going to clean my hands better and get some cookies, we can talk while we eat, Bumblebee if you want help yourself, there's an oil can over there " she said pointing to the said object. The yellow bot shook his helm with a smile .

**"no thanks Mikaela. I'm fine like this"** She tore out the door heading into the house next to the garage. Almost immediately Bumblebee started tapping his fingers on his other leg impatiently humming a Christmas song with his metallic voice, she wondered where he learned it but shook the thought away when she felt a small sting in her right arm. She looked down at it and glared at the band aid that was still sticking there, carefully she started to tear it off. What she saw made her lean again the bot's knee for support as her body trembled from an effort not to throw up, the spot where the syringe had stung was purplish and her veins were starting to show. She felt sick just looking at it and the stinging sensation was increasing.

**"Ash?"** she heard the young bot, but couldn't bring herself to answer as an effort to take control of all her shaking. "**Are you okay?"**

She felt herself start to shake more and more and was starting to slide off the metal surface supporting her when gentle fingers held her up supporting her by the stomach and chest. She heard Bumblebee faintly calling her and then shouting for Mikaela. She could see things clearly but was loosing control over her own body.

Somehow the two had managed to get her into Bee's carform and she now lying in the back seat. Reluctantly she looked down at her arm again and saw the purple mark spreading, she wasn't feeling too well.

Primus…what had that woman done to her?

* * *

Yep, it ends here, no really the chapter ends here lol, you'll have to wait for the next one.


	9. cybertronian script

Ashley awoke to the strong scent of a sterile room and faintly guessed where she was, there was a buzzing noise somewhere which could be humans.

* * *

_Oh man…I must have gotten a beating of a lifetime…. _

She thought, to her it seemed like nothing more than a beating had happened on that night days ago, that was until she opened her eyes and saw a brunette standing next to her bed, staring out a hospital window worriedly.

_What….?Mikaela?So it wasn't a dream?_

She groaned feeling a headache in the process but couldn't being herself to lift an arm to rub her forehead. Mikaela chose that time to actually notice her and gave a little jump in her seat.

"Your awake!Thank god! Bee and I were so worried!"

"What happened?" she asked looking around the hospital room, there were other patients on separate beds with curtains to block the gross view.

"The doctors…well…they think your on drugs." She said a bit hesitantly, biting her bottom lip.

"Well that's not a first….what led them to that conclusion though?" she slowly started feeling her body again, although she was starting to wish she didn't, god her arm hurt.

"Your arm, it has needle marks and it went all purple, for a while they considered amputating it" I flinched as she said that, and she gave me a sympathic look. "then it just…wore off." I raised an eyebrow at her.

"It just _wore off?_" she nodded "those types of things don't just disappear…"

"I know, the doctors are really confused about it too." She fidgeted nervously with her hands, looking sideways many times, catching her breath frequently.

"You can ask you know? Its not like I'll bite you"

"Well…I was just wondering…._are _you on drugs?" I blinked several times before expressing my pure disgust with my expression and turning away.

"God no" she sighed in relief.

"Then….how..?" for a moment I was going to tell her that doctor Rose was probably the one at fault for this but then I remembered her threat. I couldn't tell her…but if I didn't she'd tell Ratchet and he would certainly put two and two together.

"I can't remember…" I lied making it look as if I was searching around for answers, that usually made them believe me. "I can't remember anything of the sort happening to me."

"Well the doctors aren't going to like that…what am I to tell them?"

"What have you told them so far?"

"I told them I knew you through net chats, and that we had been meeting for the first time." I nodded.

"Good work, you're a fast thinker"

"Well I did have the whole way here to think about it while Bee drove."

"How is he by the way?He sounded a bit panicky before I passed out." Mikaela snorted.

"That's putting it mildly, I swear that bot has way too much compassion for human beings, he's all right though. You should have seen him with Sam two years ago when he started living with them. Kept threatening house appliances as decepticons in disguise." I raised my eyebrows in surprise and let out a low whistle.

"Talk about though ride" Mikaela just nodded in agreement. "So what now? What should we tell these guys? Plus what am I going to tell Ratchet? He'll tear me apart as soon as he finds out!" I groaned sitting up carefully, trying not to put too much strength into the hurting arm.

"Well they aren't clearing you that's for sure. They said they wanted to take some more exams to make sure nothings wrong."

"So I'm stuck here?" a nod. " Think Ratchet can convince them to let me go?" a shake of the head. "damn…."

"Now is that any way to talk?" a more male voice interrupted us, from behind the curtains came the eye sore yellow figure that was Bumblebee, Blond, fairly tan skin, a yellow jumped with two black stripes going down on each arm, and wearing black jeans, his eyes were as usual a piercing azure.

_Well at least he's not wearing all yellow this time _She thought smiling at his friendly figure.

"Bee!" she cheered childishly. He went over and the two exchanged a friendly hug, Mikaela watched the two with interest and a sneaky smirk. Bee who had his back to her didn't see it but Ashley gave her a glare and pointing at her mouthed 'Don't even start with that'.

She held up her shoulders feigning innocence as Bumblebee let go.

"How are you feeling?" He asked sitting down next to the Brunette.

"Err…."she thought for a while, some parts of her body felt sore and she was a bit tired but all in all she felt fine for someone whose arm could have been amputated and her life terminated a few hours ago. "Much better I guess… I don't remember much about being in pain.

He nodded satisfied with the answer; thank goodness robots were a bit ignorant to human's fragility in overall. "Good, I contacted Ratchet, he's on his way, unfortunately he was fixing the twins so their tagging along."

"Why did they need fixing?"

"They got carried away in sparring again." The blond boy sighed dramatically to which the two girls giggled.

It took a while before Ratchet arrived, actually they heard him way before they saw him, his shouts were clear coming from the hall.

"Its barbarity! There ought to be a law against it!"

"Now Hatchet! No need to get upset and gather all human attention!" Sideswipe said trying to drag him into the room where all the doctors wouldn't stare at him more.

"Yeah, I'm starting to feel the creeps just with their stares!" Sunstreaker agreed.

Soon enough the three came into view, it was her first time seeing Ratchet's holoform.

He had messy straw like hair and somewhat pale skin, unlike most medics he didn't have the typical 'pot belly' or an elderly look; he actually had a good physique for the appearance he took. He should have been around 40 for human standards yet was in fit shape and looked extremely healthy.

"Hey Ratchet" she said trying to sound cheerful so as not to alarm him too much. The medic simply turned and gave her a cold glare to which she shrunk back into the pillows, knowing full well she was in trouble.

"You young femme have a lot of explaining to do" He said moving closer and holding up a hand. She stared at it questioningly.

After a while of waiting he growled.

"Your arm!"

"Oh!Sorry" she said trying to lift it but it just fell back limply and she winced when it made contact with the mattress. "Er… it kind of hurts… I don't think I can lift it…"

He took it himself with surprising gentleness and pulled up the sleeve to see the needle marks.

While he was at it she tried to look away from it and smiled at the twins who were now at the end of the bed both rubbing the top of their heads. Ratchet had probably hit them along the way.

Ratchet cursed before pulling the sleeve back down and staring at me straight in the eye.

"Was this Doctor Rose's doing?" I felt my heart jump up to my throat; I was between a rock and a hard place. I knew he'd be reading my bio signals so he already knew my answer. I tried to calm myself and not break eye contact.

"No. She just took out some blood, this isn't supposed to happen form that." He smacked me atop the head and I couldn't help but whimper.

"Don't lie to me kid!" I rubbed the top of my head looking away, it was no use. "What did she inject you with?"

Now how was I to answer this?

"I…I…" I could see everyone staring at me expectantly and I tilted my head a bit downwards so that my hair could work as a curtain and hide my shame.

"I can't tell you" He was ready to hit me again. "Please! I just can't tell you! Don't force me to!" my voice wavered slightly, I kept my promise, I didn't tell, but they knew something was up either way.

"Did she threaten you?" He asked with a suspicious glare, I slowly gave a half nod, tilting my head sideways.

"Sort of…" The medic growled angrily, no one seemed to notice though. The other three bots were all glaring into thin air, probably imagining themselves stepping on the woman.

Mikaela was giving me a sympathy look albeit confused. There was a moment of silence, where no one dared to speak.

"I'm sorry." She finally said leaning against the pillows, not bothering to move the hair away from her face, she just didn't want them to see it right now.

"No need to worry youngling" Ratchet said. "I'm going to talk to your doctors, to see if I can get you to my med bay, you four keep an eye on her until I get back, inform Optimus while your at it." They gave a short nod as the medic left, he seemed too calm for her liking. Mikaela scooted closer but said nothing. I felt horrible being the centre of attention, it always made me feel like prey.

"Sorry I ruined our date" I joked after a while, making the girl chuckle amusedly. "No seriously now, I really am sorry, shouldn't you call home or something?"

"Nah its all right, my dad is away for the weekend."

"Nice…." I said for lack of anything better to say, I finally got the courage to move my hair away, the three holoforms were still staring at the air with glares. "You know, glaring on the air won't make it suffocate the woman." Mikaela chuckled as we watched the three come back from their musings. "It was nice of you guys to come though, thanks" she said to the twins and they both shot back chessire grins.

"No problem, we were dying to know if there was any Ratchets in here in human versions." Sideswipe said entertained looking back at the entrance door. I snorted.

"Good luck with that, most of the doctors are cold and insensitive."

"How'd you know that?" Mikaela asked.

"I spent a lot of time in those places, to either fix injuries or because of indigestion. I once saw a woman who had just came out of stomach surgery and was in great pain, she kept screaming and crying, struggling and the doc kept ignoring her playing on Tetris on his computer right in front of her. Took them three hours before he finally went and gave her something for the pain." The girl looked at me shocked.

"Why were you there?"

"That time was accidental food poisoning; I tried cooking squid….enough said." She trembled at the memory. "I might sound sappy by saying this but I would much rather have Ratchet yelling at me to hold on than those doctors playing tetris while I'm in pain." The four nodded in agreement. Just then the said medic entered the room.

"Uh oh…he doesn't look too happy…" Sunstreaker commented moving away from his wrath's path.

"I take it they didn't let me go?" Ashley asked as he reached them. He let out and angry huff crossing his arms over his chest disapprovingly.

"We have to wait until Optimus settles things with them and the government." I sighed, not that I really expected it to work." Bumblebee you should get going, Mikaela probably has to go home and you have to pick up Sam first thing tomorrow morning, you have a long journey head of you still." He grouched sitting down on a chair. The younger blond looked between the two authentic humans and the medic with a worried expression for a while before sighing and with a nod motioned for Mikaela to come. They said their goodbyes and left. I felt a bit sad at that, but I couldn't force them to stay here all night.

Speaking of which. The twins had just gotten themselves settled, observing the human room curiously while Ratchet looked at it with disgust.

"I take it you find our medical facilities pre historic?" I said with mild amusement at his face.

"That's one way of putting it" he grouched as a medic came into the room, he checked a few beds searching the names until he came to hers and stopped there.

"Ah. So you're Ashley, nice to meet you, I'm to take you for a few exams all right?" he said sounding all too indifferent to the situation, to him it was just a boring routine. He then turned to the three autobots.

"If you would be so kind to wait outside in the waiting room, we'll call you when we know something."

Ratchet looked like he was about to protest but the twins took him away, each holding him up by the shoulders and muttering things such as "not in front of the humans, remember Prime's orders". Actually they didn't give a slag about orders, they were just having fun tormenting Ratchet.

The doctor then proceeded to pull on her bead and wheel it away.

She lost count of how many exams she had to do and when half an hour had passed she was already dozing off right in the middle of a CAT.

She felt someone prodding and occasionally they'd ask her to do something but overall it seemed the regular medical procedures.

With time she started getting annoyed and grumpy, she just wanted to curl up in a corner and sleep.

She closed her eyes for the hundredth time and for once it felt like they were letting her sleep a bit, that was until she felt extremely cold. Snapping her eyes open she was met with the starry sky above, some medics were putting her into an ambulance.

"Wait…"she coughed, her throat felt hoarse. " Where are you taking me?" they looked down at her briefly then turned away in the same direction with questioning looks, a few short seconds after Ratchet's hologram came into view.

"Hey kid, what's wrong? Anything hurting?" she tried to shrug but found it rather difficult with her now being strapped to the wheeled bed.

"I'm doin' okay. Where are they taking me?" Ratchet nodded briefly and looked at the retreating doctors who were trying to give them a few minutes.

"Into me, I'm taking you back to base now. It's all been taken care of don't worry."

"Good…these guys have less compassion than a rock." She tried to joke but ended up coughing again, she had taken a few liquids for the necessary exams and it was making her throat incredibly dry.

Ratchet gave a faint smile before signalling for the doctors to help him put her inside. As soon as the doors shut the darkness helped her go back to sleep.

The next thing she knew she didn't feel the strong scent of anaesthetics or the bright lights of the hospital, no inside as she opened her eyes she saw an empty med bay, it was dark at the moment, the lights being out, and she was laying on a berth where her mattress had been placed. Right next to her though was a man, sitting on a chair and sleeping soundly. He wore an army sort attire and looked quite young, possibly mid twenties. Sitting up in the dim light that came from the tiny window she poked the said man with her good arm.

"Um….hey!" she whispered trying to wake him, but to no avail. She poked a little harder and his eyes blinked, the man stiffened and looked around in slight alarm but when he saw her skinny figure he relaxed visibly.

"Whazzat? Oh…oh! You woke up!" She tilted her head examining the man as he stretched and yawned still tired apparently.

"Sorry I had to wake you, but when you wake up in this place with a guy next to you you just have to wonder."

"Right…right, sorry, name's Will" he said handing over a hand, she took it with her left one since the right one was useless and shook it, he had a firm grip. "Will Lennox. I was supposed to keep you company for the night, the bots had a few issues to take care of. Only Blurr is at base at the moment and he's in the control room waiting for news."

"I see…where did they all go? Is anything wrong?" he made a shooing motion with his hand as if dismissing the thought.

"Nah. They went to take care of the doctor who poisoned you. Senator Kelly insisted they come when they went to arrest the woman."

"Their going to arrest her?"

"Yeah, you can't exactly get away with that kind of stuff. Especially when you have an advanced species find out you did it. Ratchet was pretty mad, you should have seen him" he pointed to a berth at the far end, it was completely dent in half "that has to be a work of art" she giggled and the man seemed to smile at that patting her head like a father would usually do to a child, she felt weird at the touch and slightly embarrassed, her father had never done such a thing to her. It was a simple gesture, yet it had the strongest feeling.

"You must be a really good kid, Ironhide even put a good word on you"

"He did huh? Wait why would he tell you that?"

"Oh, he guards my family" he laughed at the look of absolute shock on her face, sure she noticed he wasn't at base most of the time but to think he was guarding a family. "Yeah big guy actually has a soft heart…or spark…"

"So I've been told." She said looking away recovering from her shock. "Sorry you had to leave home though, you really shouldn't have." He shrugged.

"Hey, they were in a pickle, it was the least I could do after they helped us out so much."

"Thanks"

"My pleasure." He leaned back against his chair again and tried to stifle a yawn. " You should go back to sleep, they should be back in a few hours…"

"I'm not really that sleepy anymore." But it didn't matter if she said it or not, the man had fallen asleep again. She let out a sigh and carefully got out of bed, making sure she was okay to walk before heading off. The bots had been careful enough to leave a lifting ladder for will in case he needed to get off, it was rusty, old and it shook a lot, but she got down without a problem. It was probably left behind from the old military jets since this was an old hangar, at first the bots were going to stay in hoover dam's old base, but to their dismay they found it rather inappropriate for them and it lacked their needs in space and conditions such as humidity.

Hurrying off the first place she wanted to stop were the bathrooms, when her work there was done she took her time in front of the mirror, she looked like a corpse. Her skin was pale and her whole arm was bandaged. She was trying not to move it around too much just in case. She then took off to the rec room, climbing had proved rather difficult without using one of her arms but after twenty minutes she managed to reach the top with a loud huff and crawled to her few belongings. Searching around she found herself a notebook and a few writing utensils, gathering them all in one of the plastic bags she started going back down only to fall on her butt on the oversized chair.

"Ow…urgh this isn't my day…" she grumbled rubbing her sore bottom.

"Ibelievethatshouldbenight" she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of that voice and took more than a full minute to remember how to decipher it, she turned to stare up at blurr like a child caught stealing cookies, she knew she wasn't allowed out of the med bay.

"Er….hi Blurr!" she tried to sound cheerful but he only stared back with a somewhat stern glare. "Okay before you start reprimanding me, I needed to go to the bathroom and used the chance to come get some stuff so I could get entertained." He stood there in silence, unmoving. Then he leaned down offering his light blue hand. Getting the hint and not wanting to get into any more trouble she climbed on and sat comfortably. Blurr had one of the smoothest hands out of all the mechs, most of them had their palms separated in various pieces, but Blurr's model had more complete parts with smooth curves all pointing backwards giving him his aerodynamic look.

She snuggled closer to his thumb not noticing the odd look he was giving her along the way.

When they got to the med bay Will was still sleeping soundly and hadn't noticed a thing. She jumped out of the light blue hand and turned around to smile at the mech.

"Thanks for the ride. And erm…you think you could….just this once?" she begged.

"Iwon'ttelltheothers,aslongasyoudon'tdothisagain." She nodded happily and watched him leave. Once he was out of sight she plopped back down onto her bed and took out the first sheet of paper.

The next morning when Ratchet arrived at his medbay was to find two humans deep in sleep and the whole berth covered in sheets of paper, all of them full of ancient cybertronian codes.

He didn't dare to even touch them, afraid to put something out of order. Taking a finger to his audio he turned on his com link.

"**Wheeljack, think you could come over for a nano klik? There's something I want you to see…**"

* * *

And another chappie done : D I have tf movie style blurr sketch on my deviantart gallery, you can acess it through my profile here.


	10. Unusual Kidnapping

sorry for the long wait, please check the other tf fanfictions :D

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Wheeljack corrected his hunching position from examining the various sheets of paper displayed across the table and expelled air from his vents in a long sigh.

"Well…its certainly old cybertronian language….but…"

"But?" Ratchet eyed him suspiciously; there were rarely any "but"s with wheeljack.

"Its far too ancient for me to decipher, honestly I don't have access to enough data to be able to, how in cybertron a mere human could come up with them I can't even phantom…"

At that moment captain Lennox decided to wake up yawning loudly and stretching his arms over his head, he blinked twice before looking at the two.

"Oh, good morning Ratchet and er….?"

"Wheeljack" the mech supplied holding a finger for the soldier to shake as it seemed to be their common greeting fashion.

"Right, Will Lennox." He then looked around "What the hell happened? This looks as bad as a mad scientist's lab!" He literally couldn't even take a step out of his chair without stepping on the papers.

"We were hoping you could tell us that, but it seems you recharged through the whole thing "Ratchet said turning his optics to the young human still asleep on the old mattress. Her energy readings seemed good; she should be waking up soon.

"You know you guys should really start thinking in making human living quarters around here, I saw where she was staying at in the rec room, that usually isn't very comfortable for most kids her age.

"Prowl has been discussing that with Prime lately…but it will have to wait since we've been so busy lately." Ratchet said offering a hand so the man could get off the berth." Do you think Ashley is uncomfortable with her current conditions?" he asked tilting his head slightly as he set the human down.

"Personally I'm of the opinion every kid should have a rough time somewhere around their youth so they know what they take for granted, but I'd say its gone long enough on this case."

"Well she hasn't said anything so far…" Wheeljack commented "Maybe I can make some schematics for human quarters…" he trailed off already having his processor working on plans. Ratchet just gave him a light shake of the head before turning back to Will.

"We'll talk to her about it. Now I believe Ironhide should be waiting for you by the rec room to take you back home captain." Will nodded and quickly left, followed by a thoughtful Wheeljack.

No sooner had they left a soft mumble reached Ratchet's audios and he turned to the waking human. she was rubbing her dark brown eyes tiredly and had a massive bad hair case right now. He had never questioned it before but the young one usually had her hair wavy like a massive lion mane, it didn't exactly look very hygienic either but he _had _seen her try to desperately comb it and the amount of hair products she revised in one of their shopping trips. Somehow her hair was too stubborn and she couldn't tame it, he wondered why because most females her age were experts at this.

"Morning Ratchet" she mumbled looking up at him with a faint smile it was honest and simple.

"Good morning, I see you kept yourself busy last night." He said scowling. She blinked a few times before looking around herself with a small "oh".

"Wheeljack will be talking to you about those later on. For now I need to make some exams to make sure I extracted all the poison." He leaned down offering a hand, she gladly took it and was placed on an emptier berth.

"I was tired of sleeping and didn't want to bother captain Lennox. I asked blurr to get me my sketch book and started writing down what I got so far from the allspark." She said with a shrug, eyeing the tool he was going to scan her with.

"You got all that from just looking at it?" he asked trying to hide his surprise.

"Well…yeah…it's not very hard to figure out how it works, the problem is translating what it says."

"You do realise your saying that an artefact my race couldn't figure out for centuries is actually simple to you?" she nodded with a goofy grin.

"Yeah, but I'm serious, it works like this: you got six sides of the original cube, so in order to make the allspark do what you specifically wanted it to you had to shift the coding in scripted on it, forming the word or sentence that you wanted to order." She gave him a moment for the information to sink in. "I managed to translate the current message it has which is "Creation". So basically anything that shard will do is create life I think. The shard is adapting though. I've noticed on my short stay here that its been shifting the code on its own."

"What do you mean by that?" he asked pausing on his work, completely engrossed on the conversation now.

"Did prime tell you I tried to enter the closet the shard is in?" he nodded "I was trying to go see what was on the other side. I got a glimpse of the script but I'm still trying to figure out what the rest was."

"And what was it that you managed to read so far?"

"It's incomplete…." She said hesitating.

"Well?" he asked impatiently.

"I think it says "regeneration"". She fiddled with her thumbs uncomfortably under his intense gaze.

"Regeneration?" Ratchet repeated, just to make sure he heard right, the young girl nodded nervously.

"I-I didn't get a good glimpse though, it might be something else. But then again it could explain why it's slowly changing form, it might not _need_ to be replicated Ratchet, it can do it itself, all it needs is a little time." His frown deepened, he wasn't very happy with the news.

"How did you manage to translate the script? I'd like to know about it if you could. Just o make sure." She nodded as she was picked up again.

The next two hours were spent trying to explain how she made logic of the translation.

The medic was sceptical at first but the more she went into her explanation the more he seemed to understand it, it was really quite odd but humans were just that. Odd.

"Your linguistic skills are quite impressive young one." He admitted, the dark haired just shrugged looking away.

"I sort of always had a knack for that, learned five languages by myself when I was six, kept going from then on, its like instinct most of the time, but I think its just association with image, sound, smell and reactions, in that aspect your race isn't too different from mine, so some things seem easy to translate." She then frowned deeply in thought " however we do have some extreme differences, which is probably why I haven't been able to figure out some of the script. Like your source of energy, you guys basically drink energon, we humans however need to feed from various things at the same time. Or the fact that you build your own bodies whenever you grow up, but we don't."

"It makes sense you should have some trouble with that, but so far I can see you have figured it out perfectly, this all seems logical and has fundamental basis."

"Ah, good, so…." She drawled " can I go for a burger now? I'm starving!" Ashley pleaded, attempting to give him what humans called the "puppy dog look".

"No burgers I'm afraid, your internal systems are recovering from the poisoning, but I heard Ironhide earlier say that Will Lennox's wife wanted to bring you some healthy food for your recovery. He should be back by now considering how long we've been talking." She nodded, looking at her notes thoughtfully, her brain still mulling over the codes she didn't know. "That reminds me I have to tell you something." She looked up at him briefly, wondering what the big mech had to say. "After your little…." He frowned "_incident_ with doctor Rose we had a long talk with your government and we have gotten to an agreement. They seem to believe that since you did not want to tell us about the poison just to protect us, made you trust worthy enough with our secret, hence allowing you to go back to your hometown." He said it in a casual way, but in reality he could already tell he'd miss the little human, she had proven to be quite the interesting being to talk to, and that wasn't very usual in the medic's life. Slag he usually passed more time telling others not to move while he fixed them or how careless they were rather than conversing with them.

The young human however gave him the blankest look he had ever seen on her, and turned to her left staring at the wall like it was mildly interesting.

"Oh…" there was silence.

"I expect this came a bit of a shock, I'll leave you to your thoughts while I get Ironhide and your fuel." And with that, he left, thinking the human needed some time.

Ashley stared at the door, listening to the sound of his footsteps disappearing in the hall, once she knew he was no where near she let out a pained sigh, she didn't want to go, not back there, never there. But they weren't going to give her a choice, besides how do you go up to a giant robot and say "hey!I want to stay with you aliens rather than my family!". Honestly she thought she was pathetic, weak to have ever let herself make friends with them, if she hadn't then she wouldn't be hurting so much right now.

She wouldn't allow herself to go back to that life, never again. She couldn't, she didn't want to. Hesitantly she grabbed her clothes which had been kindly laid next to her mattress and changed. She snuck out, making sure no robots were anywhere near by the vibrations the halls emitted with their feet. Once she knew it was safe she headed for the second floor, only to stop halfway there when she spotted the memorial room.

Glancing around once, she darted inside; the familiar blue glow greeted her. She glared at it this time, her mind set.

"Sorry guys, but if it means stopping your race from abusing the creation of life, then its worth breaking Optimus's promise. I'll be gone anyway soon." She said heading over to the lock, it had a new word….a five letter word, she took a while trying to figure it out, thinking of whatever could be personal to Prime, he was the type to choose a fond memory for these things, and it wasn't until she remembered his bet that she figured it out.

"Elita" she spelled out and to her satisfaction she heard the lock click and the door open, the shard coming down. She quickly snatched it and searched for the correct way to slide the codes to their place while heading over to Jazz's empty shell. "C'mon baby, I better be right about this "she said sliding a piece into place and climbing over the dead body. It was a good thing she had learned to climb since she was very young, in fact her grandmother used to stress how she learned to climb before she had learned to crawl. She reached his chest and looked for the right spot to shift the armour, always glancing at the door to hear a nose or another, fearful they were looking for her, but for now, whichever deity was up there, it was looking after her.

"Ok…." She breathed in gaining the courage to do one of the riskiest things in her life. "here goes…" she slid the final piece and a jolt of electricity hit her for a moment, making her drop it inside as a reaction, the whole body shook violently and she barely had time to grab onto it with numb hands. A whirring sound met her; and looking up at the dead visor she saw it flicker to life.

There was no warning, Jazz swung forward madly like he was in the middle of a battle, swaying his elegant arms menacingly, claws stretched out, he screamed, shouting things she couldn't understand and even started shooting. She held on tightly until he did the scariest thing I her life. He started to transform.

She tried to jump off but it was too late, she was met with one of his parts on the side of the head and crashed back against his chest, the last thing she heard was the continuing of the transformation all around her and the screeching of tires.

Jazz finished his transformation, and as soon as his brilliant visor caught sight of the door starting to open, he burned rubber and went for it, crashing into whoever got in his way, never looking back. Wherever he was, he knew he had just been on a fight, and if he was out and not on Ratchet's medic bay, sedated enough not to move, then he should definitely be at a decepticon base.

He raced the halls in a desperate, almost claustrophobic need to get out, his audios weren't functioning properly, taking their time to reboot, and his homing system was still down. Soon he found the exit, and kissed the sweet highway, dearly wanting to get as far away as possible from the base and meet back with his friends.

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Ah a bit shorter, but I think one of my best yet. Review please :D oh and don't forget to read my other tf fics!


	11. Memories of a Monster

New chapter, warning: it gets kind of sad, the flashback is a real life experience down to the last word.

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The first thing Ashley realised was that she had a massive headache. And she didn't mean the little type of headaches; no it was the type that felt like someone was hammering your head with an iron.

She groaned, rubbing a sore spot under her hair and blinking her eyes. She sat up suddenly, alarmed.

She was inside a car, a silver car, and no one was near, the lock was closed and something in her gut told her it wouldn't open no matter how much she pulled it up.

"Glad ya finally woke up girl!" she jumped in her seat hitting her head on the roof in the process. Both the girl and the car winced at the impact and she realised she was inside a transformer, the memories started reaching back and her eyes widened, she ogled at the dash and poked it lightly, receiving amused giggles.

"That tickles girl! Quit it!" he had a nice accent and a soft voice it made her comfortable.

"Are you Jazz?" she asked although she knew the answer.

"Seems like ya know me, but I'm afraid ah don't know ya" she had the impression that if he were human he would have just winked at her.

"Ah…that's because your….well…you _were _dead."

"Say again?" he asked bewildered while the young human looked out his windows, trying to identify where they were, it seemed like a park in a small town, it was night time and no one was around.

"Yeah, you sort of got yourself killed in battle remember? Anyway apparently you were in the memorial chamber for two years and-" she cut herself off. "Wait…shouldn't we be at base?"

"Ah… ya say we were at the autobot base…?" he asked sounding a bit fearful. She raised an eyebrow suspiciously looking back at the dash.

"Yeahhhh…" she glanced back at the exterior "tell me you didn't run away…." There was no answer and she hissed leaning back in her seat and covering her face with her hands. " Shit, I can't believe this! Where the hell are we?!"

"Ah actually have no idea…." He admitted.

"Don't you have like a super advanced GPS or something? Comm. link? ANYTHING?!"

"Well…Ah do…but its completely busted, and I ran away from there and didn't really pay attention where we were headed so…"

"You have no idea where we are…" she finished for him, her headache feeling worse. "Ratchet is going to kill me…" she could already picture it… it had been her intention to fix jazz, leave the allspark fragment and get the hell out of there without anyone noticing, she wasn't expecting him to freak out like he did and take her with him.

"You and me both girl" he shifted his sensors back to the street, going back into a vigilant state.

"How long were you running away?" the young human asked searching for any street sign that might lead her to know where they were, however geography was never her forte.

"Until just a few minutes ago… must have put quite the distance."

"Wait… weren't you bonded to Prowl?" she felt the whole car actually stiffen for a second.

"How'd'ya know tha'?"

"He was at the base, bonded couples can contact each other can't they?" he got the catch and went straight to reach out to Prowl, only he didn't feel anything. He let out a deep sigh.

"He mus'be too far away, I can't reach him." She groaned.

"Great…."

"Chill girl, all ya gotta do is ask someone for directions right?" the locks chose that moment to unlock and the door swung open to let her out.

"Sure… I hope…" she said getting out, there was a small police post at the end of the street, and she could try and talk to them. "I'll be right back" she warned, running off.

He waited, watching the young human converse with the elders at some sort of security facility up ahead. While he was alone he tried again to reach Prowl but felt nothing, still, knowing he had managed to land on earth meant a lot to him.

After a few minutes the young girl came back, he took his time to study her, she seemed like the not so stylish type of human, messy hair and wearing male clothing by the looks of it.

"I think I know where we are." She said glancing back at the police post wearily. "We're in a city called Bellingham, according to the cops its not too far from Vancouver. We travelled quite a lot…."

"Ah got no access to your satellites or your world wide web, how are we gonna get there?" the girl sighed, figuring her luck would present to her this situation.

"Guess we're going to go the old fashion way." She went of his passenger seat entering with trust.

"which is…?"

"Read map at a town kiosk every time you can and head back on a wild guess you get from those maps."

"That ain't promising…."

"You have a better idea?" she retorted as he turned on his engine and headlights.

"No…" he admitted.

"Good, then we're agreed, now you need to head south according to what they told me, and its that way " she said pointing to the indicated direction.

Jazz took the advice entering the highway again, the human inside him didn't say anything and kept eyeing the road carefully.

"So uh…" he tried to chat along, he wasn't one for uncomfortable silences. " What were ya doin' in mah alt form girl? Considerin' I was dead and all"

"Oh…I wasn't" she said with a deep scowl and smacking her hand on his dash, making him wince. "you sir, freaked out and transformed while I was clinging to you trying to fix you and bring you back, before I could jump off something hit me and I got knocked out, next thing I know I'm here!" she waved her arms to the side in an expressive motion.

"Ah… I didn't notice that…" she snorted.

"Figures…anyway at least I managed to bring you back that's all that really matters."

"Ah geez, thanks girl."

"Your welcome." She said eyeing his radio since he was shifting between channels trying to pick up any frequency, finally he gave up on contact and settled for a regular radio station that was playing Avril Lavigne.

"So, how'dya bring me back? Some weird culture you humans have?" she laughed, sourly remembering how sceptic the bots had been about her ability to decode.

"No…actually I used the allspark fragment to get you back."

"Fragment? What the pit happened to the allspark?"

"Oh right, you died before it happened, apparently it got destroyed, only a tiny shard remains, which reminds me…whatever happened to it?" she wondered.

Optimus leaned down to the ground and picked up the small object that had once been sacred to his race, he turned back to the CMO who had the guiltiest look so far.

"I'm sorry Optimus, I shouldn't have left her alone."

"No, this might actually have been for the better…"

"The girl was starting to react strangely ever since we began to talk about taking her back, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe said she acted almost void when they coaxed her to the first meeting. They think she didn't want to leave. However this involves jazz though I have no idea…I can't even imagine how-"

Optimus showed him the shard, ceasing his rambling.

"Primus…" he muttered "She figured it out."

"You know something about this?" his leader asked. The medic nodded rubbing his forehead platting in shame.

"We had just discussed it before I left her, apparently she knows how to work with it till some extent, she must have found out the order for it to fix Jazz…"

"That is possible?"

"Theoretically..." he said looking uncertain.

"Then it must have worked. That still doesn't explain why Jazz ran out from here so aggressively."

"That might be because of how he died, he was fighting megatron, and waking up in here doesn't exactly set your mind at ease." The medic explained.

"How's Prowl?" Optimus asked, wanting to get on with the situation, pondering wouldn't get them very far.

"Resting, he took quite the shock when he felt Jazz re-emerge as he put it. You still haven't had any luck locating him?" the great leader shook his head sadly, he had put the twins following him but apparently the Pontiac was faster than them and eventually lost them.

"I can't help but wonder what was on Ashley's mind to make her to break her promise to me" Optimus said, placing the shard back in its containment. Ratchet shrugged, his shoulders sagging a bit afterwards.

"Desperation if you ask me, she was crazy enough not to tell me when she was poisoned just so she could spare us, who knows what she did to the allspark, for all we know she could have set it to stay useless so it can never be used for harm again." Optimus pondered on that for a second. His processor ran over the implications of such a decision, on the good side, it would end the senseless struggle for its possession and abuse; on the bad side it was just as good as gone.

"Desperation…" he repeated to himself as the medic left him alone. The single shard in his fingers stayed inactive in mock innocence.

"So let me get this straigh'" Jazz asked as the girl finished her story " you were going to fix me, leave the allspark with a permanent code for fixing only and then you were going to run away?"

"Well…yeah" Ashley agreed picking at the bandages in her arm, it was slightly numb, but it didn't hurt.

"Why would ya run away if ya were already headin' home?"

"Because I _don't _want to go home" she replied sourly. "I'm not even sure I can call it that."

"It can't be all tha' bad…" he argued calmly, setting his sights on the dark road.

"What would you know about it?"

"Well for one I _do _come from a millennia old war, you see everything in that space of time." He got no answer " I bet your parents are freakin' over where ya are righ' now"

She snorted. "fat chance…"

"Well what about your friends? Surely they noticed you've been gone right?"

"What friends?" it wasn't really a question, it was just an irony. Jazz was starting to feel the girl was hopeless.

"Don't tell me ya ain't got friends, everybody has friends!"

"Maybe in your species Jazz, not on mine."

"There has to be someone!" he insisted, changing the depressing tune they were listening to a more soothing one.

"There was one person…" she admitted.

"Ah knew it!"

"Emphasis on the was." She said with a voice as hard as stone. "She left me. Wanted to be with the big guys like everyone else. So she switched friends. In the end I guess it wasn't honest friendship".

"When did that happen?" Humans could be fascinating sometimes, but in these cases, they sounded a lot like cybertronians.

"Around four years ago I think… we only hung out for four years before that, and before that she hated me, I actually have no idea what made her want to be my friend at that time, guess being a kid makes things easier." They fell into silence for a while until Jazz got the guts to ask more.

"So…what happened afterwards?"

"Well…" she hesitated for a bit, but what did she have to loose? She was alone with this robot until they got back to base. "We had to move to another school, because the one we were at didn't provide further education, and we got to separate classes, I knew no one, well except for one girl."

"Oh? Then why didn't you approach with her? I bet she was as uncomfortable as you were"

"Not a chance, she hated me since day one. And she already knew our new classmates." She gave it a little pause, her mind going back to memories. "Her name was Martha, and she hated me with a passion, I never fully understood a good rational reason because she usually gave me lame ones. Like the names and table positions."

"What about them?"

"We share the same name, so we were always forced to sit together."

"But I thought you said your name waz ash-"

"It isn't, that's a nickname, I got it for myself so people, especially her would stop bothering me. Didn't work that much, I soon got myself a new nickname there."

Jazz didn't interrupt, he really had nothing else to do but to drive the empty road and he might as well get to know the human who brought him back while he could.

"I'll start with the first day I guess…"

FLASHBACK Ashley's POV**  
**

It was my first day, I never knew what to expect, I was young and naive, I had never changed class before, much less school, I must admit I was a bit scared and nervous at first, but I, as my innocent and kind hearted old self kept an optimistic thought in my head.

They can't be that bad, maybe this class will be even better than the last one…

We didn't exactly get along there…

My mother accompanied me up the school steps and then parted ways, I watched her leave through the teacher's hall to the arts lab and once she disappeared from my view I turned back to the school hall, already knowing which room I had to look for.  
I don't quite remember how I got there, most of my memory is already gone, which probably means I spent a bad time during then.  
But what I do remember is sitting in my desk, staring down at my fingers while our professor gave us the welcome speech, and then it started.  
I wasn't the only one in that class from my old school, a previous classmate of mine, one by the same name as I was here, and in that moment I remember hearing her gossiping with her brand new friends.  
Me and Marta, although we shared the same name, and many times the same desk, we never really got along, but we were very alike in some ways I guess. Both of us weren't very well accepted by this new class, Marta had known them before I did so she got herself prepared, that was the reason for the gossiping…  
"Yeah, her parents work here, but she's terrible in everything! She didn't even inherit her mother's talent to draw! Her mother is a painter by the way."

"Seriously? What a waste, and look at that hair! What is wrong with that thing?"

I have no idea, it used to be neat and straight, wonder what made it look like a rat's nest? Anyway there's nothing to worry about her though, she's terrible at everything, she has no talent, and she cries even if you crush a bug in front of her."

"Come on, you have to be exaggerating!"

"No, no! I'm not! That actually did happen in class a few years ago, she'd cry for every reason. And I think she's not taking it very well that her best friend just turned her back on her…"

I didn't hear any more from there, the subject had already gotten too much to me, and I was already feeling my heart ache and my eyes sting. I tried my best to contain myself but it would seem some people in my class had noticed my actions, though everyone kept quiet about it.

Again I can't tell what happened between this space of time, but I know things had already gotten bad, the boys from my class had been acting suspiciously towards me, hostile glares all the time, and my memory re-starts to our first sports class, in the girl's changing room on our first day.  
Every girl was chatting excitedly and sharing comments or asking for some equipment that she forgot at home, I sat quietly in the far corner of the bench near to the door. Why was I here?  
For one, I hadn't been that oblivious not to notice the girl's hostility as well as the boy's for the first week, and second, since this bench had a direct view from the door to the outside, no girl would stay in it in fear of being peeked at.  
And since none of them wanted to get friendly involved with me they wouldn't let me sit at any of the other benches. Not that I was minding that much, by now I learned that staying away from these people was my best option.  
Unfortunately that day wasn't meant to stay like that, as I finished dressing into my equipment, never missing one glare or another of criticism at what I was wearing, one of the girls approached me attempting to put on a serious face, and failing miserably.

"Hey Marta, mind if we talk in privet for a little while?"

I noticed the girl's intentions weren't the best, but I was young, and at that moment, very lonely, I had been glared at and left alone for a whole week by my new classroom and decided to give this girl a chance. I nodded and followed her out of the dressing room and into the old toilet room where she turned on back to face me quickly trying to hide a small quiver of a smile.

"I've been meaning to share this with someone but everyone else seems too stupid to realise it, but doesn't Mafalda sound like a real bitch to you? I mean look at her! Everyone is always boasting and drooling all over her, she thinks she is the best."

While she spoke, it was perfectly clear that she didn't mean what she was saying, for although her mouth moved, her eyes showed no emotion related to what she was saying.  
Feeling like I was being set onto a trap but still being that innocent person I was, I kept trying to give this girl a chance, I nodded and saw the girl's smirk reappear clear and thrown straight at my face, I realised here that it was no use, this girl had absolutely no intention in helping me out, all she wanted was to screw around with me. And the sudden silence outside from the toilet room was incredibly noticeable.

"You have to keep it a secret that I told you this okay? No one must find out! I'm counting on you!"

Again I nodded, but this time knowing very well what was happening, it was already clear what would happen once we stepped back into the dressing room.  
Mafalda came over to me as soon as I passed through the door, the other girls all around her, the one that spoke to me getting behind her.  
I was already hearing her question even before she pronounced it, her eyes, all of their eyes were telling me.

"What did Rita tell you? It was about me wasn't it?"

Upon the aggressive tone, and that multitude of people suddenly in front of me, I felt my body tremble slightly, it wasn't exactly fear, yes I had it too, but it was probably more anger than fear, I felt betrayed, I felt left out, and most of all, alone.  
My voice shook, none the less, I felt my grip tighten, looked up from the ground with shaky eyes, but none the less, made that difference between me and my past classmate, I stood for myself.  
I told them exactly what the other girl had said, I told it word by word never wanting to go back on what I said.  
Even before I finished speaking the girls were smiling triumphantly, they had managed what they wanted.

"I knew it! You can't be counted on! You can't defend your own friends from something bad they did!"

Maybe my actions were indeed lacking loyalty, but not to a friend, never before had that girl even spoken to me before this day, so there was a very little chance that I actually considered this person my friend. This was a person, who in my point of view, clearly wanted me harm, and all the others represented the same so far.  
So I told them the only thing I could actually think of and say for sure.

"To a person who showed me no friendship, and who shows no friendship for the ones she pretends she is a friend, I owe no loyalty."

I remember that with that I closed my bag, and left for the field. It was our first sports class however so we didn't exactly practice that day. Once our presentations were over, we were dismissed, I changed quickly without any interruptions from others and left, I had two hours to fill in alone in the school fields, so I found myself heading for an area with more trees where it looked calmer than the soccer field.  
I must have been there about half an hour just staring into space, admiring the nature I so enjoyed since the day I was born.  
I was awoken from my thoughts by a boy's shout, I turned slowly to see it was one of my own classmates, heading over with a group of other boys, all with smirks in their faces, probably thinking of themselves already too highly for ten year olds.

I can't really tell what was said during our little first chat, but I remember it was about the "discussion" in the girl's dressing room.  
That was the first time I had gotten a beating for real, I received so many hits I barely felt my own body when I hit the ground, it was not an overly abusive beating, none the less it had indeed been a beating, my body wasn't as hurt as my soul was, and I barely had any pride at that age, but I did manage to give him my final glare just before he knocked me out with a kick to my face.  
I believe I had never even glared at anyone before except for a certain cousin of mine, but nothing ever compared to this situation, I had never really felt anger and hatred until then.  
By the time I had gotten back to my senses I had little time left from my break and ran off to a girl's bathroom where I tried to wash off the dried blood that had slipped from my nose, my whole body hurt, and many bruises were certainly going to appear, but I already knew reality, I had to go back to those people, I had to endure at least this whole year studying in the same room, sharing the same school breaks.  
I tried the best I could to wash off the tears I had shed in that bathroom, to hide the fragile spots where I had been hit, fortunately the only hit to the face had been that final kick, so it probably wouldn't show much.  
I hurried across the corridors and hid next to the door of our next class, that was probably the safest place, since students weren't allowed in the halls, but the hall monitor in charge didn't mind me staying there as long as I didn't make a mess nor much noise.

END OF FLASSHBACK normal POV

" And from then on it kept going like that, up until I met Sunstreaker, Sideswipe and Blurr. I kind of got the nickname of a monster or abomination, a freak if you will, because of the excuses people would use to beat me, my smile, my hair, my solitude. Everything was an excuse." Jazz was mulling over the information, feeling like he would want nothing more than to give a piece of his mind on those younglings but of course he knew he couldn't. Primus the girl hadn't given any signs of crying during the whole time, it was just as if she was indifferent to the whole thing.

In all honesty he could perfectly understand their reasons, they were like the decepticons, craving for power, the strongest survived. Ashley, who wasn't strong still defended the ones weaker than her, and defied even the ones who could easily make her life what it probably was now.

"You don't sound much like the girl from the story now though" he admitted, and to his surprise she let out a chuckle and pat his dash, her eyes were expressing a kind of recognition.

"I think you can figure out why…"

"You toughened up" he concluded, certain about his theory " It was either that or you'd be gone by now."

"Right'o…" she leaned back in his seat, relaxing a bit. It had actually felt good to talk about the matter. "That's why I was going to run away, I can't…." she didn't finish, she couldn't find the right words.

"I feel ya lil' lady, it might not be much but I've known mechs and femmes go through the same thing, I know what ya goin' through. And rest assured, I'll talk to the boss bot and see if we can arrange somethin' in your favour"

"Y-you…!" she stuttered, eyes wide, staring at the radio which was changing to a more cheerfull tune. "are you serious?!"

A kind chuckle was her answer.

"As serious as I'm gonna get lil' lady. Now sit tight because we have a home to head to!"

"God…if I could I'd hug you right now…I love you!Your the best!" she exclaimed, rivers running down her cheeks.

"Oh now yer leekin'! Those better be tears of joy."

She sniffled, trying to wipe them away, smilling until she noticed how bright it was getting. At the distance they could see a truck heading the other way. Its lights were overly strong.

"Man I'm such a wuss…crying like this…"

"Ah don't worry, ah won't tell a soul" just then he noticed something was a bit odd with the truck, he was getting a little out of the road. Swerving ever so slightly from side to side. He tried to get a scan on the human inside and it seemed he was a bit infatuated with some odd substance that made him unbalanced. Suffice to say he couldn't even grip the steering wheel right. Just when he finished his scan the truck gave a violent jerk, turning sideways and falling. Whatever was inside its container made a noise of protest and smelled like the pit. Jazz tried to turn around spinning on his tires so as not to hit it, but they were too close and the impact threw him off rode. The girl inside screamed along with his aching body as they rolled down into the fields. When he finally came to a stop, he realised she wasn't screaming anymore.

"Owww…you humans should stop driving…there aught to be a law against it. You all right lil' lady?" he got no answer. He felt her still inside but she wasn't moving. Quickly directing his scanners inside he saw that she was thankfully alive, but knocked out, her head had a second large bump and he just knew that to get those twice a day couldn't be good for the human's health.

"Yo! Wake up!" still no reply. "rise and shine lil lady! I need ya to answer me!" seeing the human didn't even move he tried to turn on his hologram, thankfully it wasn't busted. A dark skinned man with dark blue sun glasses appeared on her side and untied the seatbelt, checking for any possible and more serious injuries. Her wounded arm had apparently reopened some cut for it had bled through the bandages and although he shook her she just wouldn't wake up.

Sighing out of frustration Jazz drove up back onto the road, finding the truck driver looking at his vehicle with a mist of awe and disbelief. He stopped and sent his hologram out to the man.

"Yo! You there!" he called, and the man, a nervous pile of human fat looked back, with even more fear on his face.

"Sir! A-are you allright?! I swear I didn't…! I couldn't…! I don't know how this happened!"

" Whatever dude, look, I need to get to a hospital-fast- my friend in there hit her head pretty hard. You know the nearest place?" The man glanced at the silver Pontiac with clear guilt in his eyes before turning back to him.

No sooner had he gotten the instructions the silver car shot out into the road again, getting out of their path and heading to the nearest town.

"Don't worry Ashley, this time, you got a friend right'ere!" he was determined to help the little human.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed, leave comments. And yes the flashback was 100% the real deal.


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